Philip Moose
Permanent Collection | Caine & Bales/Garrison Galleries (2nd Floor)
Born on January 16, 1921 in Newton, NC as the fifth child of seven, Philip Moose excelled early on and his talent as an artist was first noticed by his second grade teacher. He had his first painting on exhibition by the time he was fifteen years old and later began taking private lessons with his uncle in New York. He was class President his junior and senior years at Newton High School and graduated with honors in 1938. Shortly after, Moose’s father passed way in 1939. As a way to cope, Moose pushed himself to pursue art professionally and enrolled in the William Lester Stevens Art School of Design in Rockport, Massachusetts that summer. He continued to be a fast learner and received a Tiffany Fellowship award in 1940 to the National Academy of Design in New York City, where he worked as an art gallery assistant, organizing and installing over two thousand paintings.
Painting was Moose’s tool for self expression. According to his two sisters, Mattie Moose Stutts and Sue Moose Murphy, and his closes friends, Moose was “shy, soft-spoken, gentle, but most of all, modest.” Moose won several awards, including two Fulbright Scholarships. His accolades were listed on his resume, but he never talked about them. Instead, Moose let his paintings speak for him. He traveled the world and painted everywhere he went. His vibrant use of colors, adapted from his Dutch background, lift his landscapes right off the canvas, expressing how he saw the beauty of the natural world.
Moose came to settle in Blowing Rock after his friend and fellow artist, John Brady, purchased several lots down Highway 221 in the 1950s from artist Minerva Goldsmith. Moose was followed by several other artists—Herb Cohen, José Fumero, Frank Sherrill, and later Lynn Jenkins—who also bought property in the neighborhood and made their homes there. Together, these artists founded an area in Blowing Rock known as Artists Alley. By the 1960s, Moose and Brady began opening their homes and studios late in the summer, a tradition that became known as the Artists’ Alley Art Show. His later paintings show many local scenes of Blowing Rock and the surrounding landscape. Moose and his partner, Frank Sherrill, sold their homes and returned to Moose’s hometown of Newton, NC in 1998. He passed away just before Christmas in 2001.
Image Credit: Philip Moose (1921 - 2001). Untitled (Grandfather Mountain). Acrylic on Canvas. Gift of John & June King, on behalf of Robert Hamilton Bailey and Winifred “Peg” Rothwell Bailey.