Minnesota's Grandpa Moses was Arnold Kramer, a husband, father, farmer, folk artist and respected community member in southwestern, Minnesota.  He was a musician and director, teaching music to his family and community, after learning everything he could from a fiddle won in a raffle in the late 1800's.  Click on this link to listen to the Kramer Brother's Orchestra play a tune recorded on an Edison wax cylinder a century ago.

He was a contemporary of Laura Ingalls Wilder, raising his family in the same county she wrote about in On The Banks of Plum Creek.  (FYI, the wild plums still grow there - I kid you not.)

Kramer was often surprised at the attention his art brought him.  The above photo shows him directing the community band at Arnold Kramer Day, an event hosted by a nearby college and art organization at Kramer's hometown of Wabasso, Minnesota in 1971.

The University of Minnesota nicknamed him Minnesota's Grandpa Moses due to the naive nature of his work which was very similar to New England's Grandma Moses.  He painted over 400 pictures intended to record the history of the rural midwest.  Kramer's career was recorded in local and statewide newspapers and magazines.  A project to bring images of his work together can be viewed at www.arnoldkramer.com.  Read an article about the artist by published by the Saint Paul Pioneer.

Fieldstone Vineyards near Morgan, Minnesota will be hosting the first public display of Kramer's work in over 30 years.  Press Release.