Folk Art (Winter 2003/2004)

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gallery 529 west 20th street 3rd floor new york city 10011 212.627.4819 riccomaresca.com

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STEVE MILLER • AMERICAN FOLK ART •

SALMON WEATHERVANE from Washington State.

24" in length, cedar construction with applied copper fms and scales.

Subject to prior sale.

17 East 96th Street, New York, NY 10128 Thlephone:1-212-348-5219, Fax: 1-212-427-4278, E-mail: sharksm@earthlink.net

By appointment only.

Mrs. Moses B. Russell Watercolor Portrait on Ivory of a Baby Boston, Massachusetts c. 1840 / 3" Height

DAVID WHEATCROFT Antiques 26 West Main Street, Westborough, MA 01581 • Tel:(508) 366-1723

Visit our website at: davidwheateroft.com

JAMES CASTLE

1900-1977

Untitled (figure in red coat), not dated found paper, string, color of unknown origin, flour paste, soot, 11'h" x 43/4"

Catalogue availabLe January 2004

J CRIST GALLERY AND ART SERVICES

The Belgravia Building 465 West Main Street Boise, Idaho 83702 Phone 208 336 2671 Fax 336 5615 Electronic Mail art@jcrist.com

J Crist is the primary representative for the work of James Castle

Trotta-Bono Antique Native American Art

Shell Mask Mississippian Period Circa: 1200-1600 AD Tennessee

Exhibiting at The American Antiques Show - January 15-18, 2004 - New York City - and -

By Appointment: (914) 528-6604 • P.O. Box 34 • Shrub Oak, New York 10588 • email: tb788183@aol.com /74-, 17:49 4 We are actively purchasing fine individual pieces and collections.

FURNITURE

ART

Very fine and rare Federal carved and gilded girondole mirror, with eagle surmount above a plinth and rockery, flanked by cornucopias with floral bounty, above a strapwork and floral decorated cove molded frame with gilded spherules and ebonized inner liner, mounted with original candlearrns with crystal bobeches and prism drops, above a leaf carved ornament. America or England, circa 1810-15. 47" high, 32" wide.

Specialists in American Federal Furniturefor over 30 years.

Thomas Schwenke Inc American Federal Furniture

50 Main Street North, Woodbury, CT 06798 Just past Rte. 47 Tel.(203) 266-0303 Fax (203) 266-0707 www.schwenke.com

ONE AMBER LANE • NORTHAMPTON • MASSACHUSETTS • 01060 • • • ( 4 1 3) 5 8 6 • 3 9 0 9 • BENISEK WALTERS • MARY DON

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NEEDLEWORK PANEL: FARM ANIMALS • C. 1830 • MID-ATLANTIC STATES • 24 x 42 INCHES FRAMED

FOLK ART VOLUME 28, NUMBER 4/ WINTER 2003/2004

FEATURES

Cover: SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN WITH HER FIRST LITTLE GROUP OF CHILDREN /Sister Gertrude Morgan/ New Orleans/n.d./crayon, acrylic and/or tempera,felt-tip ink, and pencil on paper!9 x 855"/collection of Barbara B. Louviere

Folk Art is published four times a year by the American Folk Art Museum.

The museum's mailing address is 1414 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019-2514,Tel. 212/977-7170, Fax 212/977-8134. Prior to Fall 1992, Volume 17, Number 3, Folk Art was published as The Clarion. Annual subscription rate for members is included in membership dues.

Copies are mailed to all members. Single copy $8.00. Published and copyright 2003 by the American Folk Art Museum,45 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019. The cover and contents of Folk Art are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any manner without written consent. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the American Folk Art Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts or photographs should be accompanied by return postage. Folk Art assumes no responsibility for the loss or damage of such materials. Change of address: Please send both old and new addresses to the museum's mailing address at 1414 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019-2514, and allow five weeks for change. Advertising: Folk Art endeavors to accept advertisements only from advertisers whose reputation is recognized in the trade, but despite the care with which the advertising department screens photographs and texts submitted by its advertisers, it cannot guarantee the unquestionable authenticity of objects or quality of services advertised in its pages or offered for sale by its advertisers, nor can it accept responsibility for misunderstandings that may arise from the purchase or sale of objects or services advertised in its pages.

The museum is dedicated to the exhibition and interpretation of folk art and it is a violation of its principles to be involved in or to appear to be involved in the sale of works of art. For this reason, the museum will not knowingly accept advertisements for Folk Art that illustrate or describe objects that have been exhibited at the museum within one year of placing an advertisement.

RECENT GIFTS TO THE AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM: A COLLECTION SAMPLER Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson

39

MISSIONARY,PREACHER,ARTIST: EXCERPTS FROM TOOLS OF HER MINISTRY: THE ART OF SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN William A. Fagaly

50

A SPIRITUAL REFUGE:FIVE EARLY WORKS BY NEK CHAND Cheryl Rivers

62

PAINTED BY ABIAH S. WARREN Michael R. Payne and Suzanne Rudnick Payne

ss

DEPARTMENTS

EDITOR'S COLUMN

8

DIRECTOR'S LETTER

15

MINIATURES

18

PLANNED GIVING ANNOUNCEMENT

20

TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS

22

THE AMERICAN ANTIQUES SHOW AND PROGRAMS

26

OUTSIDER ART FAIR BENEFIT PREVIEW AND PROGRAMS

34

UNCOMMON ARTISTS XII SYMPOSIUM

35

GIFT MEMBERSHIPS

74

SAVE THE DATE—SPRING BENEFIT ANNOUNCEMENT

79

MUSEUM REPRODUCTIONS PROGRAM

82

BOOKS OF INTEREST

86

MUSEUM NEWS

88

OBITUARIES

97

TRUSTEES/DONORS

98

MUSEUM HOURS AND ADMISSIONS

103

INDEX TO ADVERTISERS

104

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 7

EDITOR'S

COLUMN

ROSEMARY GABRIEL

e are gearing up for a fabulously full winter season—and an especially full issue of Folk Art. The American Antiques Show (TAAS), which is presented solely for the benefit of the museum, opens with a gala preview on Wednesday, January 14, 2004. For information about show hours and special programming, see pages 26 and 27. The eagerly anticipated twelfth annual Outsider Art Fair also opens next month. Join us on Thursday, January 22,for our special Benefit Preview (details on pages 34 and 35).

"Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan," the longawaited solo presentation of this African-American, self-taught artist's work, opens on February 25, and will be on view though September. Guest curator William A. Fagaly of the New Orleans Museum of Art is the acknowledged leading scholar of Sister Gertrude Morgan's life and work. His essay, starting on page 50, outlines some of the important events in this remarkable woman's life, and gives us a first look at some of the wonderful works of art that will be in the show. Complementing "Tools of Her Ministry," which displays Sister Gertrude Morgan's heavy use of text as an integral part of her artmaking, the museum also presents "Talking Quilts," an exhibition that explores the thoughts and experiences of women through the words they have chosen to apply to their needlework. See Museum News(pages 88 through 97)for an outline of"Talking Quilts" and other museum events. ..:rican Folk Art Museum: If you haven't already seen "Recent Gifts to t., A Collection Sampler," which opened on October h, 1 heartily recommend that you do. The museum's curators, Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson, have selected thirteen works from this exciting exhibition, and present them here, starting on page 39. Each is a treasure, and, together, they begin to represent the broad—and often wonderfully idiosyncratic—nature of folk art. Also recently, in 2001, the city of Chandigarh,India, celebrated the silver jubilee of artist Nek Chand's extraordinary Rock Garden, and the American Folk Art Museum accepted a generous gift of five Nek Chand sculptures. They are illustrated here with a beautifully written essay by Cheryl Rivers, which begins on page 62. Our last essay is the story of a little-known, nineteenth-century woman portrait painter, Abiah Warren, whose talent and tenacity truly warm the spirit. Collectors Michael and Suzanne Payne bring this artist to our attention with their gem of an article,"Painted by Abiah S. Warren." It starts on page 68.

I am especially delighted to bring you this very full issue of Folk Art, as it will be my last. After twelve and a half years, I am leaving the museum to pursue other interests, in what will be a very active retirement. These have been the happiest years of my working career, and I go with almost equal sadness and joy. I'd like to take just a moment to thank my wonderful staff, Katharine Clark, Vanessa Davis, and Eleanor Garlow, as well as copy editor Erikka Haa; our fabulous magazine designer, Jeffrey Kibler; the entire American Folk Art Museum community and staff; and, especially, Director Gerard C. Wertkin,for making my time here exciting, delightful, and decidedly worthwhile.

Folk Art will continue under the able leadership of Tanya Heinrich, who has been with the museum for ten years and has headed its very successful exhibition catalog and book division. As I join you, on your side of the aisle, I look forward to her bringing her intelligence, taste, expertise, and confident voice to Folk Art.

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AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS/FOLK ART Rosemary Gabriel Director ofPublications/Editor and Publisher Tanya Heinrich Exhibition Catalog and Book Editor Katharine Clark Production Editor Vanessa Davis Assistant Editor Erildca V. Han Copy Editor Jeffrey Kibler, The Magazine Group,Inc. Design Eleanor Garlow Advertising Sales Craftsmen Litho Printers Administration Gerard C. Wertkin Director Susan Conlon Assistant to the Director Linda Dunne ChiefAdministrative Officer Robin A. Schlinger ChiefFinancial Officer Madhukar Balsara Assistant Controller Angela Lam Accountant Irene ICreny Accounts Payable Associate Robert J. Saracena Director ofFacilities George Y. Wang Director ofInformation Technology Wendy Barbee Manager of Visitor Services Anthony Crawford Assistant Manager of Visitor Services Michele Sabatiele Visitor Services Associate Daniel Rodriguez Office Services Coordinator Beverly McCarthy Mail Order/Reception Katya Ullman Administrative Assistant/Reception Collections & Exhibitions Stacy C. Hollander Senior Curator and Director ofExhibitions Brooke Davis Anderson Director and Curator of The Contemporary Center Ann-Marie Reilly ChiefRegistrar and Director ofExhibition Production Elizabeth V. Warren Consulting Curator Education Diana Schlesinger Director ofEducation Rebecca Hayes Manager ofSchool and Docent Programs Lee Kogan Director, Folk Art Institute/Curator ofSpecial Projects for The Contemporary Center Laura Tilden Education Assistant Departments Cathy Michelsen Director ofDevelopment Cheryl Aldridge Director ofInstitutional Giving Radhika Natarajan Development Associate Dana Clair Development Assistant Suzannah Kellner Membership Manager Lauren Potters Membership Associate Danelsi De La Cruz Membership Assistant Wendy Barreto Membership Clerk Susan Flamm Public Relations Director Katie Hush Special Events Manager Alice J. Hoffman Director ofLicensing/Executive Director of The American Antiques Show Marie S. DiManno Director ofMuseum Shops Richard Ho Manager ofInformation Systems, Retail Operations Janey Fire Director ofPhotographic Services James Mitchell Librarian Jane Lattes Director of Volunteer Services Eva and Morris Feld Gallery Staff Dale Gregory Gallery Director Ursula Morillo Weekend Gallery Manager Kenneth R.Bing Security Bienvenido Medina Security Treenia Thompson Security Museum Shops Staff Managers: Dorothy Gargiulo, Louise B. Sheets, Marion Whitley; Book Buyer: Evelyn R. Gumey;Staff: Erin Caprara, Yan Chen, Jillian Strobel, Sandy B. Yun; Volunteers: Angela Clair, Millie Gladstone, Blayne Home, Elizabeth Howe, Judy Kenyon, Arlene Luden, Nancy Mayer,Judy Rich, Frances Rojack, Phyllis Selnick, Eugene P. Sheehy American Folk Art Museum Book and Gift Shops 45 West 53rd Street New York, NY 10019 212/265-1040,ext. 124 Two Lincoln Square(Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets) New York, NY 10023 212/595-9533, ext. 26 Mailing Address American Folk Art Museum 1414 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019-2514 212/977-7170, Fax 212/977-8134, http://www.folkartmuseum.org; info@folkartmuseum.org

8 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

ALLAN KATZ Americana

Carved and Painted Folk Art Dog. Wood with taxidermy glass eyes American.

Circa 1900. 36 L x 22" H

Allan & Penny Katz By Appointment 25 Old Still Road Woodbridge, CT 06525 Tel.(203) 393-9356 folkkatz@optonline.net

PO txpx 457,20 Main Street Bridgeport, NJ 08011Phone:(856) 467-3197 rax:(856) +67-5451 raccooncreek@msn.com

OON REEK Antiques, L.L.C. George R. Allen • Gordon L. Wyckoff

Rare Commemorative Hooked Rug: Wool on Burlap, Ca. 1870... honoring tile 19th Infantr,9, and thell-th battalion active during the Civil War, Maine Origin.

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Whimisical Hooked and braided Rug, Wool on Linen, Ca. 1880, New England Origin.

TRACY GOODNOW ART Sk ANTIQUES 576 SHEFFIELD PLAIN (ROUTE 7) PO Box 1340 SHEFFIELD MA 01257 / TEL 413.229.6045

Portrait Miniature of the Pierce Children Attributed to Mrs. Moses B. Russell of Boston (active 1835 - 1854) Watercolor on ivory, 5 1/8" x 4" (shown actual size)

Andrew Flamm & Michelle Hauser

ODD FELLOWS ANTIQUES

Carved and painted wood, Wisconsin, circa 1900, 7" x 25".

P.O. Box 145, Mount Vernon, ME 04352 • (207) 293-3569

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Alk "Holy Family" Italian American New York City NY Circa 1910 15"H x 14"W x 5"D

407 West Brown St. Birmingham MI 48009 248.540.9288

American Folk Art Sidney Gecker

226 West 21st Street New York, N.Y. 10011 •(212)929-8769•Appointment Suggested Subject to prior sale.

DIRECTOR'S

LETTER

GERARD C. WERTIUN

osemary Gabriel has served as editor of Folk Art and as director of publications for the American Folk Art Museum for more than twelve years. Fifty issues of this magazine have appeared under her aegis, as well as innumerable books, catalogs, brochures, programs, announcements,invitations, and other printed materials. Without doubt, the museum's publishing efforts in the last decade have been more ambitious than at any other time in its history. In a career in magazines, the fiftieth issue is surely a milestone. For Gabriel it is significant in another way, as well; it crowns her outstanding record of achievement at the museum and also marks her leave-taking.

I first met Rosemary Gabriel in the spring of 1991 when I was interviewing candidates for the editorship of Folk Art. It was clear that she was a consummate professional, having worked at McCall's Needlework & Crafts magazine for fourteen years, where she last served as editor in chief. I was immediately drawn to her upbeat spirit, her refreshing combination of down-to-earth practicality and commitment to excellence, and her no-nonsense willingness to get the job done. Over the years that followed,I have had the pleasure of working closely with her. I will miss our collaboration immensely, but am delighted that her plans for a very active retirement on the east end of Long Island promise wonderful new challenges for her and some extra time to dig in her garden.

One of Rosemary Gabriel's special attributes was her effectiveness as a mentor to the members of her staff. As a result, the museum's publications department flourished under her leadership. I am especially pleased that she will be succeeded, both as editor of Folk Art and as director of publications, by Tanya Heinrich, a member of the staff since 1993. Employed initially as production editor, Heinrich was promoted to the position of associate editor in 1998. In 2001, she Rosemary Gabriel became exhibition catalog and book editor, assuming day-to-day editorial and production management for a series of demanding volumes,including American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum and American Anthem: Masterworksfrom the American Folk Art Museum. I congratulate Tanya Heinrich as she assumes her new responsibilities. To my friend and colleague Rosemary Gabriel, I offer Godspeed and my warmest appreciation for her years of dedicated service to the museum.

In addition to its staff, the museum is fortunate to be served by a corps of gifted volunteers. Among these good friends, I am especially grateful to Jon Zoler. Retired after a distinguished career in market research for several Fortune 500 corporations, Zoler is providing valuable professional counsel and advice to the museum on an ongoing basis. For each of the most recent exhibitions, Zoler designed comprehensive audience surveys, trained volunteers to administer them, and provided detailed analyses of the results to museum management. Consequently, we are equipped to plan exhibitions that respond to the interests of our visitors and to build effective marketing programs that draw

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diverse audiences to the museum. Becky Zoler, who shares her husband's passion for traditional American folk art, works as a team with him; her carefully prepared reports present the results of Jon's analyses in "user friendly" formats, which all of us appreciate. More than anything else, it has been gratifying to confirm through the Zolers' efforts that our audiences truly value and enjoy their visits to the museum and rate the experience most highly. On behalf of the museum's Board of Trustees and staff, I extend this expression of gratitude to Jon and Becky Zoler.

As this issue of Folk Art reaches you, the museum is anticipating the installation of a new exhibition,"Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan," a retrospective of the life and work of the intriguing New Orleans artist. A true visionary, Morgan lived in the here and now,but the world of spirit was just as real to her. William A.

SS Tanya Heinrich

Fagaly, a distinguished art historian, is guest curator; he knew Morgan and studied her life and work over three decades. The result is a fascinating, multi-dimensional presentation that you will not want to miss.

Since my last letter, we have installed "Recent Gifts to the American Folk Art Museum: A Collection Sampler." Jon Zoler's audience surveys have confirmed that visitors want to see and experience the great riches of this institution's collection. In response, Stacy C. Hollander, senior curator and director of exhibitions, and Brooke Davis Anderson, director and curator of the museum's Contemporary Center, have organized a stunning exploration of recent gifts to the collection that represent all areas of the museum's mission. I know that visitors will find this presentation provocative and appealing, and I extend a warm invitation to you to come and enjoy.

This issue of Folk Art will reach you just prior to the holiday season. Please accept my greetings and the wishes of the entire museum family for a time ofjoy and a New Year filled with happiness and peace.*

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 15

Chilkat Dancing Blanket Tlingit Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century 37" x 64" excluding fringe

David Cook Fine American Art 1637 Wazee Street • Denver,Colorado 80202 • Tel 303.623.8181 www.davideookfineamericanarteom

AMERICAN PRIMITIVE GALLERY 594 BROADWAY #205 NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 966 1530 MON-SAT 11-6

indian with bears carving 7 x 8 x 4 in.

COMPILED BY VANESSA DAVIS

THE AGES OF MAN Harry Lieberman c. 1970 Oil on canvas 30 . 40" Private collection

Art Through the Ages A New Look at Grandma Moses of the age spectrum are repreThe ninth thematic exhibition at bow, believed to be her last work, A comprehensive new exhibition sented in this show, which feathe American Visionary Art completed at age 101, closes the of the work of legendary folk Museum (410/244-1900)in Balti- tures 250 works primarily by 50 exhibition. Documentary panels artist Grandma Moses challenges visionary artists who began makmore,"Golden Blessings of Old the 21st-century viewer to ing art late in their lives. Just a Age/Out of the Mouths of reconsider her work in a new few of the well-known artists Babes," will be on view until context."Grandma Moses in included in this show are Sept. 4,2004. Curated by the 21st Century" is on disMichael Bonesteel and the Amer- Grandma Moses, Bill Traylor, play at the Wadsworth Gayleen Aiken, Georgia Blizican Folk Art Museum's Lee Atheneum Museum of Art explores the zard, Howard Finster, Lee Godie, Kogan, the show in Hartford, (860/278-2670) Nellie Mae Rowe,Sam Doyle, paradoxes of stereotypical views Conn., until Feb. 15, 2004, and Harry Lieberman, who conof childhood and old age, as well and features more than 50 tinued painting until his death at as the wisdom and beauty that paintings and related objects. age 106. For more information children and the elderly alike can The exhibition encourages about this exhibition, please call express through their creativity. the viewer to see Anna Mary the museum.

Visionary artists from both ends Robertson Moses' work in the context of the history of modem art as a whole, and in turn raises questions regardAnnual Antiques Forum at Colonial Williamsburg ing the definitions of high niture, silver, textiles, paintings, Colonial Williamsburg's 56th and popular art, folk and outZ2 Antiques Forum,"Made in Amer- and architecture produced in sider art, as well as distincGrandma Moses painting outside, 1946.

America from 1780 to 1830. In ica: The Arts of the Early Repubtions between memory and Grandma Moses Properties Co.. New York. addition to taking part in the lic," will be held Feb. 1-5, 2004, imagination. The show spans forum program, participants may in Williamsburg, Va. The forum Moses' oeuvre and highlights also register for private tours of boasts an impressive roster of and artifacts help the viewer to her three primary themes: autobihistoric homes and hands-on more than 20 nationally known get an idea of Moses' working ographical storytelling, the workshops linked to the Colonial scholars, historians, collectors, methods. For information, call importance offamilial and social Williamsburg collections. For and dealers—including Pulitzer the museum or visit its website, bonds, and sharing the burdens more information about the Prize winner Gordon Wood and www.wadsworthatheneum.org. and pleasures of farmwork. RainAntiques Forum, please call The Magazine Antiques' editor800/603-0948 toll-free or visit at-large Wendell Garrett—who Historic African-American Quilts www.colonialwilliamsburg.org. will explore the remarkable furThirty-seven rare quilts from the collection of Dr. Everette James and his wife, Dr. Nancy Jane The Art of Simplicity Farmer,compose the traveling are Center Diamond,Sunshine The first quilt exhibition in the exhibition "The Farmer-James and Shadow, Pinwheel, and American Wing of New York's Collection of African-American Crazy Quilt. Although this is an Metropolitan Museum of Art Quilts," opening at the Hampton exhibition of quilts owned by the (212/535-7710)since 1990,"The University Art Museum museum,three of the nine quilts Art of Simplicity: Amish Quilts (757/727-5308), Jan. 30, 2004, in on display are recent acquisitions, from the Collection of the MetroHampton, Va. The show will be and this is their first showing.

FLYING GEESE QUILT! maker unknown/ politan Museum" opened Nov.4 at Hampton until March 14, then Columbus County, North Carolina / c. 1925/ be on view until Feb. 1, The Metropolitan Museum is and will reopens at the Charlotte Museum Farmer-James Collection of African-American usually closed on Mondays, but 2004. The nine featured quilts of History (704/568-1774)in Quilts will be open on Dec. 29 and Jan. were made between 1892 and North Carolina, where it will 19 for special holiday museum 1940,in Amish communities in North Carolina's Weslyan Colremain until March 26,2005. visits. For more information, Pennsylvania, Ohio,Indiana, Illilege, where the show originated.

This exhibition was organized by please call the Met or visit its nois, and Iowa. Among the quilt For more information, please call Everett Mayo Adelman,curator website at www.metmuseum.org. patterns included in the selection the venue closest to you. of the Four Sisters Gallery at

19 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

CHARLTON DSHG,EI AMIERICAN

Tall clock. A dramatic assemblage of hand carved, and found elements, attributed to "Gregg," and marked Blowing Rock, North Carolina, circa 1930-1940. Measures 65" tall, 25" wide, 27" deep.

Specializing in folk art & material culture ofthe Southern backcountry.

By Appointment. Asheville, North Carolina (828) 251-1904 www.charltonbradsher.com

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MINIATURES

Detail: ALBUM QUILT Friends and family of Samuel Williams Baltimore, Maryland C. 1845-1865 Cotton, silk velvet, wool, and silk embroidery threads The Baltimore Museum of Art, gift of Serena O'Laughlen Wagner, BMA, 1988.206

SQUIRREL EATING NUT WEATHERVANE PATTERN / attributed to Henry Leach 11809-1885)/ Boston / 1869-1870 / pine / 161 / 4 163/4 17/ 1 2"/ American Folk Art Museum, promised gift of Ralph Esmerian, P1.2001.331

hrough a planned gift, you can provide enduring support for the American Folk Art Museum, which will assist you to achieve both your charitable goals and your estate-planning objectives.

Planned-gift vehicles include bequests, charitable remainder trusts, and donations of appreciated assets, such as works of art, securities, and real estate.

If you would like assistance in planning a gift to the Museum, please contact: Cathy Michelsen Director of Development American Folk Art Museum 1414 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10019-2514 Phone: 212/977-7170,ext. 316 Fax: 212/977-8134 cmichelsen@folkartmuseum.org

20 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Baltimore's Quilting Heritage Baltimore's distinctive contribusome boasting appliquéd replicas tion to the history of American of railroad cars, local monudecorative arts is the subject of ments, memorials to fallen "Baltimore Album Quilts: heroes, and patriotic motifs. LivAppliquéd Artistry," on view ing in a port city, quiltmakers in through May 9, 2004, at the BalBaltimore had access to fine and timore Museum of Art(410/396unusual fabrics; album quilts 7100). More than 20 album quilts from other parts of the country and individual quilt squares crewere made primarily of red and ated in Baltimore between 1845 green calico. A series of workand 1865 show how local quiltshops led by well-known quilters, makers raised album quilts to a including a lecture and workshop new level of sophistication. by nationally known quilting Album quilts, mostly simple and expert Elly Sienkiewicz, complegraphic in design, were created ments the exhibition. For more throughout the eastern seaboard. information and program schedBaltimore album quilts were ules, please call the museum or complex and richly detailed, visit its website, www.artbma.org.

Tramp Art An intimate exhibition of unusual tramp art pieces will be on display at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum (757/220-7670)in Williamsburg, Va., until Sept. 4, 2004. These five examples of chip carving— popularly known as "tramp art"—serve to represent the wide range of objects that were made using this method."The practice of saving old cigar boxes and packing crates and carving them into useful and decorative items [has] been likened to the tradition of quilting, whereby 19th-century women saved scraps of fabric and later pieced them together," said Jan Gilliam, curator of the exhibition."Chip carving required few tools and little training, and men with spare time in the evenings created wonderfully layered

objects that decorated the homes of family and friends, and complemented the Victorian decor in many houses of the period." For more information, please call the museum or visit its website, www.colonialwilliamsburg.org.

CHEVAL GLASS / David W. Fox /Tarr, Pennsylvania / 1896-1904/ butternut, ash, glass, and iron / Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virignia, 1995.2000.1

Fireman and Policeman Carved and painted wood, metal and leather.

Midwest origin.

Overall height 28" Circa 1920

HARVEY ART

&

ANTIQUES

1035 Wesley Avenue Evanston, Illinois 60202 847.866.6766 www.harveyantiques.com

FAMILY TREE WMI BIRDS/ Albert Zahn / c. 1924-1950 / Cedar, metal, and paint / 45 x 27 x 14"/from the collection of Patsy Bernstein, Chicago

the National Register of Historic Places, and is now slowly being restored. Zahn's work is on display throughout the United States, but this show offers a rare opportunity to view much of his work together, some of which has not been shown before. For more information, please call Intuit or visit its website, www.art.org.

Antiques

American Folk Art Museum Jacob Kass was a professional truck painter, ad designer, and letterer long before he began his gorgeous panoramic landscape paintings on saws and other tools.

After he retired, Kass began painting autobiographical Brooklyn cityscapes, rural Vermont scenes, and people in both places at work and at play. The American Folk Art Museum is pleased to present "Painted Saws: Jacob Kass," now a traveling exhibition, at the William D. Cannon Art Gallery (760/602-2021)in Carlsbad, Calif.

The show will be on view until June 27, 2004, after which it will move to the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art(336/7251904)in Winston-Salem, N.C.,on

Traveling Exhibition July 16. Kass's painted saws will be there throughout the summer, until Sept. 26.

Virginia Tech Media Services, Blacksburg, Va.

Flock of Folk Art Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art(312/243-9088) in Chicago will host "Albert Zahn: I'll Fly Away,"from Dec. 12, 2003, to March 5, 2004.

Albert Zahn began selling and giving away his whittled sculptures of hawks, owls, and songbirds long before he died. In 1924, he built his retirement home,Birds Park of Baileys Harbor, in Door County, Wisc., that he covered with figures of birds, totem poles, angels,insects, and animals. After Zahn's death in 1953, his collection of work deteriorated, as freestanding pieces at his house were given away or placed in museums and galleries.

Birds Park was eventually put on

SOWING THE FIELD /Jacob J. Kass/ 1988-1991 / Magna acrylic and oil on saw / 20" diam./ collection American Folk Art Museum, gift of Ray Kass and Jerrie Pike, 1999.2.1 / from the traveling exhibition "Painted Saws: Jacob Kass"

Art

Itiv American..

41.4,4„' Fish Sculpture

By New Mexican folk artist Felipe Archuleta (1910-1991).

Signed F.B.A., 1975 46" long

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Jell Cherry k Kass Hogan Stissing Mt. Lane * Pine Plains, NY 12567 * 518-398-7531 www.cherrysallery.com

22 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

JOSEPH GARLOCK 1884-1980

Contact us for a catalog of the 2003 exhibition at Webster University in St. Louis, MO.

LINDSAY GALLERY 986 North High St. Columbus, OH 43201 614-291-1973 email: lindsaygallery@hotmail.com

vv-ww.lindsaygallery.com

JEFFREY TILLOU ANTIQUES

Above: A rare diminutive size raised panel blanket chest having unusual free form poly-chrome paint decoration depicting butterflies and floral motifs. Poplar with walnut legs retaining original untouched paint decoration. Western Pennsylvania or possibly Virginia, ca. 1800-1820.

Measurements: 381/2" w„ 1614, d„ 211/2" h.

24 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Location 39 West Street Box 1609 Litchfield, Connecticut 06759 Tel.(860)567-9693 Fax:(860)567-8526 jtillouantiques@earthlink.net Hours Mon., Wed.-Sat. 10:30am - 5:00pm Sundays 11:00arn - 4:30pm

Folk Art Hanging Shelf Carved and painted slate hanging shelf, dated 1916, Pennsylvania. Width 16.5", height 12", depth 4".

•0101-4

Thurston Nichols American Antiques LLC

522 Twin Ponds Road, Breinigsyille, PA 18031 p:610.395.5154 f:610.395.3679 www.antiques101.com EXHIBITING. Antiques at the Other Armory, January 16-18, 26th St and Lexington Ave, NYC The Original York Antiques Show, January 30-February 1, York Fairgrounds, York, PA

A Twenty-First-Century American Tradition

January 15-January 18, 200

A,

KICK OFF AMERICANA WEEK IN NEW YORK CITY! .„.„.„. . . _, ...:,_......,.. v.,„.Ar il •

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Ash

A Benefit for the American Folk Art Museum at the Metropolitan Pavilion

Gala Benefit Preview

The American Antiques Show 200

14 00 g lAte g es a An exclusive first-hand look and the opportunity to purchase Americana and folk art at TAAS 2004.

a Januar 18, -Sun r • Show open to the public-featuring 45 exhibitorsa "who's who" of Americana and folk art dealers.

TICKETS:

TICKETS:

> 5:00PM entry, Platinum $750 or Gold $2500 (pkg. of 4) > 6:30PM entry, Silver $350 or Americus (under 40 yrs.) $200

> Daily

Limited tickets available. Gala tickets include readmission to TAAS.

pedal Event > In the Company of Experts: $75 Early Buyers' Market Thursday, January 15 10:30 AM -NOON Avoid the crowds! Spend an hour and a half browsing and buying before the doors open to the public on the first day of the show. > VIP TAAS Tour: $75 Eat, Drink & Discover Thursday, January 15 6:30 PM-8:30 PM A soiree for art enthusiasts and young collectors under 40! Enjoy an evening of live music with food and full bar plus an exclusive tour and visits with selected dealers. > In the Company of Objects: $35 What's It Worth & Fabulous Fakes Friday, January 16 10:30 AM-NOON Hidden Treasures! Don't know if your favorite

object belongs in the attic or on display or how to spot a fake? Meet experts for the answer. One object per person.

$15 at the door (includes TAAS catalog) > Group discount available (10 or more)

TAAS doors open daily at noon. Free Shuttle service available each day to and from the American Folk Art Museum and TAAS.

> In the Company of Experts: $35 Walking Tour Saturday, January 17 10:30 AM-NOON An insider's view! Follow a folk art and antiques expert through the exhibit hall. Learn how to examine objects with a critical eye and how to live with them in your home. > In the Company of Experts: $45 America Toasts-American Wines Saturday, January 17 5:30PM-7:00PM Cheers! Combine two of life's greatest pleasures, collecting and drinking wine. Morrell & Co. will conduct a tasting of fifteen or more American wines for all palates.

Ticket Sales and Special Event Information: E-mail taas(o)folkar tmuseum.org or call 212.977.7170 and ask for TAAS. Visit the Museum's web site www.folkartmuseurn.org and click on EVENTS.

Honorary Chair & American Spirit Award Honoree Dominique Browning, editor, House & Garden The Metropolitan Pavilion is located at 125 West 18th Street (between 6th & 7th Avenues), NYC. Managed by Keeling Wainwright Associates

THE AMERICAN ANTIQUES SHOW

AMERICAS LEADING ANTIQUE SAMPLER AND NEEDLEWORK DEALER

Exceptional Chester County, Pennsylvania sampler

by Ann M. Way, dated 1849 in original frame.

Sampler size: 17 1/4" x 17 3/4"

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tratiare and &start Nanot Mow Way P 14Ay MOM M SPlay Fraak6May Ehalleth it* and &rail NM) ,

Please visit us on the web at www.samplings.com

M.Finkel0Daughter.

936 Pine Street• Philadelphia, PA 19107 T: 215.627.7797• F: 215.627.8199 www.samplings.com • mailbox@samplings.com

STEPHEN

0 It MEN JR.

AMERICAN,SPORTING & WESTERN PAINTINGS ANTIQUE DECOYS & AMERICAN FOLK ART

Our 6th Annual Catalog, showcasing over 50 examples of our finest sporting art and antique decoys, is now available. The fullcolor catalog is $25. For more information, please call (617) 536-0536 or visit our website at www.antericansportingart.com.

Feeding Greater Yellowlegs from Cape Cod,Massachusetts, circa 1880. Laminated five-piece construction,with continuous wing, shoulder, and eye-groove carving.

APPRAISALS • AUCTION REPRESENTATION • BROKERAGE • COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT 268 Newbury Street• Boston, MA 02116 •(617) 536-0536 — by appointment only info@americansportingart.com www.americansportingarecom

28 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

CARL HAMMER GALLERY Folk and Outsider Art from the 79th, 20th, and 21st centuries and Contemporary Art

LEFT:

Dancer, wood carved, anonymous BELOW:

Joseph Yoakum The Abolishment of Waters on the Land near the town on West Side of Black Sea named town of Eni-Geda Asia

EXHIBITING:

The American Antiques Show New York City, January 15-18 The Outsider Art Fair, Puck Center New York City, January 22-25

740 N. WELLS STREET, CHICAGO, IL 60610 PH: 312-266-8512 / FX: 312-266-8510 hammergall@aoLcom • www.hammergallery.com

ANTIQUE QUILTS & AMERICANA 1050 SECOND AVENUE, GALLERY 84 (Between 55-56th Sts.)

NEW YORK, NY 10022 Mon-Sat 11am —6pm Tel: (212) 838-2596 Alt: (212) 866-6033 e-mail: info@LauraFisherQuilts.com

New York City's broadest selection of antique quilts, hooked rugs, rag carpet, coverlets, paisleys, Navajos, Beacons, home furnishings and American folk art.

MISS LIBERTY AND SOLDIERS OF THE WORLD CRAZY QUILT, silk, c. 1880, New York State. The embroidered figures and format are so like the Equestrian Quilt in the Museum's collection that they probably were made by the same person.

Visit our new website LauraFisherQuilts.com Pick up our new publication QUILTS 2004: An Engagement Calendar, available at Barnes & Noble and at my shop.

BAL LYHAC K AN TI Q_U

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Man vs. Bear In the Battle for the Honeypot Early 20th Century Midwest Original Paint on Wood with Fur MARY SAMS P.O. Box 85, Cornwall, CT 06753 860-672-6751 • Cell: 917-453-3606 e:ballyhackantiques*ahoo.com

www.ballyhackantiques.corn

Presently on Exhibition

Eileen Doman Ida the Baptist(2003) Acrylic on canvas, 12" x 9"

Please visit our booth at the

2004 New York Outsider Art Fair January 23-25

N. Water St.• Milwaukee, 02 414.278.7100 • Tuesday - Saturday www.deanjensenart.com

C E

T ER

ENTIINE

Be sure to visit our booth at the OUTSIDER ART FAIR January 23-25, 2004 Puck Building • SOHO • New York City

GILLEY8 AND

GAIRDY FRAMING

8750 Florida Boulevard Baton Rouge, LA 70815 225.922.9225 outsider@eatel.net or visit us online at: www.gilleysgallery.com Two Women at Yucca House • 11" x 13" Reduced Oil on Paper • c 1940

HARRIS DIANIANT

WONDER — CABINET

HARRIS DIAMANT, A DEALER IN AMERICAN FOLK ART SINCE THE EARLY 1960'S HAS EXPANDED HIS COLLECTION TO INCLUDE OBJECTS FROM SCIENCE & INDUSTRY AND OBJECTS OF EXCEPTIONAL DESIGN. A SELECTION OF HIS OWN ART IS EXHIBITED AS WELL.

I-IARRISDIA1'/LANT.C01‘)/1

32 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Anthony Joseph Salvatore 1938 -1994

Cavin-Morris Galler 60 Broadway Suite 405 B , NY I tel 2 I 2 226 3768 Fax 2 I 2 226 0155 mysteriesŠaol.com www.cavinmorris.com

The lively and festive opening night celebration of the Outsider Art Fair, a benefit for the American Folk Art Museum, offers a first look at an amazing variety of works presented by the best and most respected American and international galleries in the field.

Enjoy hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and music at this exuberant evening of art and discovery!

Image: Detail of: NENUPHARS/PAIX CHRISTI (doublesided)/ Aloise Corbaz (1886-1964)! Switzerland / mid-20th century / crayon, colored pencil, geranium flower juice, and thread on paper / 577/8 X 275/8"/ American Folk Art Museum, gift of Etienne Forel and Jacqueline Porret-Forel in honor of Sam and Betsey Farber, 2002.8.1 / photo

by Gavin Ashworth, New York

Benefit Chairs Ling and Thomas Isenberg Laura and Richard Parsons Angela and Selig Sacks Alexis Shein and George Contos

2004 OUTSIDER ART FAIR BENEFIT PREVIEW THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004 6:30-9:00 PM THE PUCK BUILDING

EARLY ADMISSION 5:30PM AND 6:00pm LAFAYETTE & HOUSTON STREETS

BENEFIT TICKETS

Collector $1,000 per person ($825 is tax-deductible) Includes early admission at 5:30PM, unlimited re-admission to the Fair, Fair catalog, one ticket to Sunday Brunch at the Blanchards'(January 25), one ticket to Uncommon Artists XII: A Series of Cameo Talks (January 24) and the Museum's forthcoming Sister Gertrude Morgan exhibition catalog.

Benefactor $750 per person ($625 is tax-deductible) Includes early admission at 5:30PM, unlimited re-admission to the Fair, Fair catalog, one ticket to Uncommon Artists XII: A Series of Cameo Talks (January 24) and the Museum's forthcoming Sister Gertrude Morgan exhibition catalog.

Patron $350 per person ($250 is tax-deductible) 6:00PM admission, unlimited re-admission to the Fair, Fair catalog, and the Museum's forthcoming Sister Gertrude Morgan exhibition catalog.

Supporter $150 per person ($75 is tax-deductible) 6:30PM admission, one re-admission to the Fair, and Fair catalog.

To purchase tickets, please contact the Museum's special events department at 212.977.7170 ext. 308 ore-mail specialevents@folkartmuseum.org

SPECIAL PROGRAMMING

CONVERSING WITH CONTEMPORARY FOLK ART Guided Museum Tours Thursday, January 22Sunday, January 25, 2004 3:00PM each day American Folk Art Museum 45 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) Free with Museum admission These guided tours, offered each day during the Outsider Art Fair, will look at highlights of contemporary works in the Museum's exhibitions "The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball" and "Recent Gifts: A Collection Sampler."

For more information, please call the education department at 212.265.1040, ext. 119. For reservations, please call the visitor services department at 212.265.1040, ext. 160.

INSIDE OUTSIDER ART IN NEW YORK An American Folk Art Museum Folk Art Explorers' Day Trip Friday, January 23, 2004 10:30AM-4:30PM American Folk Art Museum 45 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) $80 for members; $90 for non-members Please join the Folk Art Explorers for an outsider art day trip. We will begin our day with a VIP tour of "Recent Gifts: A Collection Sampler." The group will then visit two impressive private collections and enjoy lunch in Manhattan.

Motorcoach transportation and lunch are included in the tour cost. Enrollment is limited. For reservations, call the membership office at 212.977.7170, ext. 328.

FOR THE

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM NEW YORK CITY

UNCOMMON ARTISTS XII: A SERIES OF CAMEO TALKS The Anne Hill Blanchard Symposium A symposium presented by the American Folk Art Museum's Folk Art Institute and Contemporary Center.

Saturday, January 24, 2004 10:00 AM -NOON American Folk Art Museum 45 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) $35 general, $30 members, seniors, and students At the forefront in celebrating and introducing powerful, under-appreciated artists to a larger public, Uncommon Artists seeks to examine creativity within a personal and cultural context. Unique in format, this symposium specifically focuses on individual contemporary artists from around the world.

GREETINGS Gerard C. Wertkin director, American Folk Art Museum

INTRODUCTION Lee Kogan director, Folk Art Institute and curator of special projects for The Contemporary Center, American Folk Art Museum CHRISTINE SEFOLOSHA Roger Cardinal, independent scholar, author SISTER GERTRUDE WILLIAMS MORGAN REVISITED William Fagaly, guest curator, author

SUNDAY BRUNCH AT THE BLANCHARDS' Sunday, January 25, 2004 10:00 AM -1:00 PM At the home of Edward V. Blanchard Jr. New York City $250 per person Esteemed British art historian Roger Cardinal will lead a small group through the rich and bountiful Blanchard-Hill collection at this brunch party held during the Outsider Art Fair 2004.

AUTISTIC SPECTRUM ARTISTS Dr. Pam Rogers, art therapist, and Margaret Bodell, curator, Pure Vision Arts, NY

A fundraiser for The Contemporary Center of the American Folk Art Museum this event is a rare opportunity to see one of the most comprehensive collections of works by self-taught artists in New York City. Monty Blanchard, a trustee of the Museum, will host the morning.

Space is limited. For reservations, please call the Folk Art Institute at 212.265.1040, ext.105.

Space is limited. For more information or to order tickets, please call 212.977.7170, ext. 308 or e-mail specialevents@folkartmuseum.org.

EDDIE ARNING Pam Sachant, Ph.D.

The Outsider Art Fair is produced and managed by Sanford L. Smith & Associates

IMPORTANT HISTORICAL PAINTING FOR SALE

Clementine Hunter's First Oil Painting "Bowl of Zinnias" Complete documentation and history available at www. clementinehunterartist .com "Bowl of Zinnias" predates even the well known window-shade painting long thought to be Hunter's first work. Until recently, the whereabouts of the zinnia painting were known only to members of a Louisiana family who helped the artist begin her career. Painted c.1939, "Bowl of Zinnias" is a landmark in folk art history and a museum treasure.

Provenance: Gift of the artist c.1939 to Blythe White Rand of Alexandria, La., descended directly in the family to the current owner, grandson of Mrs. Rand. Exhibitions: The Saturday Gallery, St. Louis, Mo., Nov.-Dec., 1952. Addison Ripley Gallery, Washington, D.C., Sept.-Oct., 1997. Literature: Look Magazine, June 16,1953, painting photographed with the artist in her home on Melrose Plantation, Natchitoches,La.

\ I

Exhibiting at The American Antiques Show January 15-18, 2004 New York City

36 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

hci. Rase "rabic

David L. Good

Sam Forsythe

Antiques

Antiques

7887 State Rt. 177 Camden, Ohio 45311 513-796-2693

7997 Pisgah Road Greenfield, Ohio 45123 740-335-936,5

THE AMERICAN ANTIQUES SHOW

THE

AMES

GALLERY MCP

riffith

WG74/117,"Apartment Houses," 2002,oil on canvas, 20 x 24"

WG76/122,"Big and Tall Women," 2002, oil on canvas, 20 x 24"

Exceptional

works

by contemporary, visionary, self-taught and

outsider artists.

Early handmade Americana including carved canes, tramp art, quilts and whimseys.

Bonnie Grossman, Director fax: 510/845-6219

2661 Cedar Street, Berkeley, CA 94708

email: info@amesgallery.com

tel: 510/845-4949

online: www.amesgallery.com

Fifty years of representing significant works by 20th-century American self-taught artists

RECENT GIFTS TO THE AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM*

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By Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson

ince the museum opened its award-winning building in December 2001, a great number of important works have entered its permanent collection. A selection of these recent gifts, in all media and dating from the early nineteenth century to the present, are on view for the first time in a fresh installation on the museum's fifth floor. Highlighting the diversity of the museum's growing collection, the exhibition "Recent Gifts: A Collection Sampler" explores both the traditional and unconventional facets of folk art and the work of self-taught artists. Common visual design elements and motifs often link the artworks, creating dynamic relationships and unpredictable juxtapositions. An intriguing tension between the embracing nature of folk art and the idiosyncrasy of individual voices emerges, regardless of time or period. Organized by Stacy C. Hollander, senior curator, and Brooke Davis Anderson, curator and director of the museum's Contemporary Center, the exhibition reflects the expanding mission and collecting interests of the American Folk Art Museum.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 39

in Ashworth, New York

40 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

his nearly life-size portrait by Joseph Whiting Stock shows a young boy poised on the edge of childhood. The cornucopiashaped vase overflowing with flowers hints at his fruitful life ahead, while the crop in his hand hints at the man he will become. Interestingly, this was the least likely age to be depicted in American folk portraiture of the nineteenth century, and is also unusual in Joseph Whiting Stock's oeuvre; when the artist painted children they were most frequently under the age of five. In other regards, the portrait exemplifies characteristics strongly associated with Stock's portraits of children, including dark, soulful eyes and colorful props and clothes.

Joseph Whiting Stock was born in 1815 in Springfield, Massachusetts, one of twelve children. Until 1826 his life was unremarkable, but in April of that year he was pinned under a fallen oxcart, and was thereafter paralyzed from the waist down.

Following a period of inactivity he was determined to support himself, and tried his hand at painting at the suggestion of his doctor. He trained briefly with Franklin White, a former pupil of Chester Harding's. Stock soon earned commissions through his circle of family,friends, and neighbors. After another physician devised a wheelchair that increased Stock's mobility, he embarked upon a prolific career. The journal he maintained contains a wealth of biographical material, and explicitly lists the name, gender, and age of the subjects he portrayed, as well as the size of the canvas. It also indicates that he painted landscapes and genre scenes, made anatomical drawings, and painted on window shades. Stock died in 1855 of tuberculosis, following a lifetime of pain. His career is noteworthy today primarily because of the colorful appeal of his portraits of children and for the fascinating journal that details his career and his life, and that illuminates Stock's cheerful optimism in the face of terrible adversity.

T

YOUNG MAN WITH RIDING CROP Joseph Whiting Stock (1815-1855) Probably New England 1840-1850 Oil on canvas 54 39" Gift of Stephen Mazoh 2002.30.3

Ashworth, New York

LANDSCAPE FROM "HOUSE OF 1,000 PAINTINGS" Sanford Darling (1894-19731 Santa Barbara, California c. late 1960s House paint on Masonite board 24 30" Gift of the Mendelsohn Collection 2002.5.1

he "House of 1,000 Paintings" in Santa Barbara, California, no longer exists.

When its creator, Sanford Darling, died in 1973 the entire installation was disassembled, and each of the one thousand paintings was sold as an individual work of art. Darling conceived of his idiosyncratic domicile following several trips around the world, and the death of his wife. Returning from Asia and Europe and wondering what color to paint the exterior of his home,Darling picked up a brush and painted a green-hued grass hut. This memory painting from his travels in the Pacific soon became only one of hundreds of polychromed "travelogues." He created and then installed the paintings—salon style—both inside and outside his home. The landscapes crowded every surface, and the sight soon attracted visitors. The artist welcomed the attention and would lead tours for the public and the press. Darling's House of 1,000 Paintings became a local landmark in the late 1960s, and Darling was often quoted as saying,"Anything that was flat, I painted a picture on."

This late-in-life conversion to artist makes sense in Sanford Darling's life, which was dictated by adventure and chance; he also had careers as a Hollywood stuntman, commercial fisherman, chiropractor, and engineer before retiring to the easel and paintbrush. The museum's painting by Darling is a classic island scene, a volcanic mountain dominating the composition.

T

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 41

F,

Gavin Ashworth, New York

DEGREE OF POCAHONTAS HOOKED RUG Artist unidentified Probably New York Early 20th century Wool and cotton 27 48" Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler 2002.25.1

ne of the most imposing sculptures in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum is the monumental weathervane in the form of Tammany,chief of the Delaware Indians. This ninefoot-tall figure once stood atop a building in East Branch, New York, that housed the fraternal organization known as the Improved Order of Redmen. This society traces its origins to several secret groups founded before the American Revolution, and was established to promote freedom for the colonies. It adopted the persona of Tammany as a symbol of leadership, loyalty, and courage. The organization, divided into councils and tribes, ratified a women's affiliate, the Degree of Pocahontas,in 1887, "after the first of the Cold moon,GSD 395." These initials denote the "Great Sun of the Discovery," the year that Columbus discovered America,followed by the number of years after that discovery. The ladies' auxiliary takes its name from the storied daughter of the chief of the Algonquin Indians who was held hostage by the English settlers at Jamestown. She became a pivotal figure in reestablishing peaceful relations between the settlement and the Indian nation after a period of hostility. This hooked rug is replete with symbols relating to the nomenclature,implements, and tenets of an organization whose motto is "Freedom, Friendship, and Charity." G.S.D.410(or A.D. 1902)commemorates the date on which the "forty-fifth Great Sun Council Fire of the Great Council of the United States" met at Bon Ton Hall, in New York City.

0

ugene Von Bruenchenhein I worked as a florist -Al and a baker before devoting the last forty years of his life to making art. The son of a sign painter and stepson of a Sunday painter who believed in reincarnation and in evolution, Von Bruenchenhein was exposed to creative trades and nonconformist ideas from an early age. It was a fortunate foundation for an artist who found voice in a wide range of expressions: painting, ceramics, sculpture, poetry, and photography.

Von Bruenchenhein exploited the notion of romance by elevating his wife, Marie, into the sole object of his desire in thousands of adoring photographs. His unerring devotion to his work was superseded only by his adoration of Marie, whom he called the queen of his existence. Seeming to mimic the pin-up girlie images of midtwentieth-century Hollywood, Von Bruenchenhein captured his wife in all stages of dress and undress, adorning his subject with vampish costumes and idiosyncratic accessories against draped backdrops.

Marie performs the entire range of female sexuality— looking innocent and virginal in one photo, seductive and sexy in another. Sometimes, when she confronts the camera lens(and thus her husband as well), she can even appear a bit bored. It is not at all clear, in fact, whether Marie is a willing or unwilling collaborator in the creation of these astounding images.

PORTRAIT OF MARIE SEATED, WEARING CROWN, AGAINST FLORAL BACKGROUND Eugene Von Bnienchenhein 11910-1983) Milwaukee, Wisconsin c. 1940-1950s Gelatin silver print 10 8" Gift of Lewis and Jean Greenblatt 2000.1.4

42 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 43

In Ashworth. New York

NENUPHARS/PAIX CHRISTI (double-sided) Aloise Corbaz(1886-1964) Switzerland Mid-20th century Crayon, colored pencil, geranium flower juice, and thread on paper 57/ 1 2>< 27%" Gift of Etienne Forel and Jacqueline Porret-Forel in honor of Sam and Betsey Farber 2002.8.1

44 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

orn in Lausanne, Switzerland, Aloise Corbaz moved to Germany before World War II, and was employed as a governess for the chaplain of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Corbaz first started to experience delusions of a romantic relationship (at one point even writing love letters to her employer), and exhibiting an agitated manner and religious fervor, before being institutionalized in 1918 for schizophrenia. Two years later, she began to draw. Her colorful drawings are enriched by collage elements, such as packaging paper, toothpaste, yarn, and magazine advertisements. She created a painted world full of theatrical scenes and settings.

Kings, queens, dukes, and duchesses fill her pages.

Lush and romantic flowers occupy space with operatic, fecund women in her scrollfilled drawings. Her favorite motif was that of courtly love, through which she expressed her unrequited love for Kaiser Wilhelm II. Nenuphars/Paix Christi translates into "Water lilies/Peace Christ," and is a double-sided work comprising three sheets of paper stitched together by the artist. Each side depicts a romantically embracing couple. Flowers,leaves, and other decorative motifs crowd the passionate couples, and the artist obliterates the space between man and woman. On one side of this work, a woman is literally lifted off her feet to reach her lover's lips, and, while a substantial figure, she appears to be floating upward off the page.

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COOLER WITH EAGLE AND SHIELD Jacob Van Wickle lc. 1757â&#x20AC;&#x201D;?) and James Morgan, Jr. 11756-1822) Old Bridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey C.1815-1825 Salt-glazed stoneware with cobalt decoration 15 12" diameter Gift in loving memory of Julie and Sandy Palley 2002.3.1

ome of the earliest American stoneware potteries were located in New Jersey, because of its rich clay beds and ready access to markets, primarily in New York and Philadelphia. The most important early New Jersey site was located at Cheesequake, on land purchased in 1710 by Charles Morgan, and developed as the area's first kiln during the 1760s by Morgan's son James. In 1801, James's son James Morgan Jr. sold the pottery started by his father, and appears to have formed an association with Branch Green's stoneware manufactory in Troy, New York. By 1805, Morgan, Green, and Jacob Van Wickle established a stoneware pottery in Old Bridge, New Jersey, about ten miles west of the original kiln site in Cheesequake. It is thought that the pottery at Old Bridge remained in operation until about 1828, based upon documentary evidence and the discovery of pottery shards at the site. This impressive stoneware cooler displays the hard, shiny salt glaze typical of New Jersey stoneware. It was achieved by putting salt into the kiln when it reached about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the salt exploded owing to the intense heat, the vaporized sodium reacted with the silica in the clay, producing a hard, watertight glaze. The elaborate cobalt decoration of the Great Seal of the United States suggests the piece was made as a gift or presentation piece. The patriotic imagery is combined with a heart-shaped device around the spigot, evoking a love of country appropriate for a potter who fought to win the freedom to express it.

S

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 45

RED BOTTLECAP BARN Clarence Woolsey (1929-1987) and Grace Woolsey Id. 1988) Iowa C.1960-1970s Bottle caps with mixed media 20 x 22 18" Gift of Susann Craig 2000.6.1

his red barn was constructed from bottle caps by Clarence and Grace Woolsey, a husband and wife team. In collaboration, the Woolseys built several hundred sculptures using bottle caps in a process the artists coined as caparena, meaning "caps in the arena." This hobby craft started in 1961 when Clarence and Grace were employed as farmhands in Iowa. During a snowstorm one evening they started fashioning a church from bottle caps strung together with wire. As Grace said to a reporter years later,"We wondered what could we make out of caps? We made a little church, and after that we just decided to make other things." These other forms included buildings, animals, vehicles, and fantasy figures such as extraterrestrials.

The couple enlisted friends, gas station owners, and barkeeps to donate bottle caps. Clarence made the understructure of each sculpture, they both would string and nail the bottle caps, and then Grace would add the paint for finishing details. From 1961 to 1971, the Woolseys created several hundred sculptures, eventually exhibiting them twice. The lack of interest by visitors and press, however, discouraged the artists, and they abandoned their project. Twenty years later, in the 1990s,their artwork resurfaced a third timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;at the auctioning of the farm where the Woolseys had placed everything in storage.

There is a long and rich folk tradition of recycling material into artwork. Bottle caps, while an idiosyncratic choice, are actually a common platform for contemporary self-taught artists. While the material is not in this case unique, the sheer quantity of objects and the various forms invented by the Woolseys are.

T

46 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

tenciled bedcovers are relatively rare, as compared with pieced and appliquĂŠd examples, and appear to have been made primarily in New England and in New York State. Their production was most prevalent during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when stenciled decoration adorned the interior walls of many homes, and young women were taught the art of stenciling and theorem painting in schools. To date, about sixty examples are known, and nearly half are quilted. Interestingly, when they are quilted the bedcovers most frequently combine stenciled and painted blocks with chintz blocks, as in this piece, which is very similar to a quilt in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts.

Twenty stenciled blocks, with several repeating patterns, are set on point, alternating with printed blocks, also set on point. These printed cottons feature the popular pheasantand-tree motif that was introduced by Bannister Hall in England in 1815.

The palm tree, bird, and exoticflower elements in this fabric inspired the floral imagery that infuses the stenciled blocks and border on three sides. This beautiful stenciled quilt, valued through several generations of the maker's family, has survived in almost pristine condition. According to a handwritten note that descended with the quilt, it was made in Conway, Massachusetts, by Olivia Dunham and her sister in anticipation of Olivia's marriage to Romulus Barnes of Connecticut. Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved to Illinois, where the quilt passed through the family as a wedding present for each ensuing generation.

S

STENCILED QUILT Olivia Dunham Barnes (1807-1887) Conway, Franklin County, Massachusetts c.1831 Paint on cotton and printed cotton 83 72" Gift of In the Beginning Quilts, Inc. 2002.11.1

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 47

REV. CATHIT Sam Doyle 11906-19851 Frogmore, St. Helena Island, South Carolina c. 1970s House paint on composition paneling 48 32" Gift of Dorothea and Leo Rabkin 2002.4.14

ne of the oldest playthings known to man,the hobbyhorse also assumed a more serious role as a tool for teaching and as a prop for mime in pageants and celebrations. In early America, this combination offun and instruction was used as a selling point: in 1785, William Long advertised that he made "Rocking-Horses in the neatest and best manner, to teach children to ride and give them wholesome and pleasing exercise." This was a refrain that was to endure through the next century.

In its most basic form, a hobbyhorse could be fashioned from a stick, with the carved figure of a horse or horse's head attached to one end. Over time, it evolved into the multitude of equine toys we know today. Variations became increasingly complex,from simple rocking horses to manufacturer Benjamin Potter Crandall's innovation in the 1860s of putting a horse on springs affixed to a platform. When moving toys became especially popular after the Civil War, many companies started to promote the "velocipede," a cart set on wheels with a horse's head attached to a small front wheel. The example shown here was patented on January 30, 1877, by R. Schwarz Toy & Fancy Goods Co. It was featured in their 1878 catalog and advertised as "The American Trotter, with Sulky." According to the advertising cut, the toy "... affords the most natural and healthful exercise for the arms and chest of a toy yet discovered. It is so near the ideal Horse and Chariot of the youthful fancy, that it fills the heart of its young owner with happiness and joyful content." Embellished with eagle wings, this chariot is a representation with roots as old as classical mythology, the Bible, and astrological constellations. In Roman times,imagery of a chariot race was considered appropriate for the coffin of a child, and was often used to symbolize life as a race.

0

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am Doyle was more than anything else a portrait painter. Whether he was working on roofing tin or plywood or discarded signage, Doyle relished in painting visages of local characters, national figures, sports heroes, and religious leaders.

Doyle lived on St. Helena Island in South Carolina, a place rich in Gullah culture where, because freed slaves in the nineteenth century could live there without much interference from whites, African traditions and customs (particularly language and food ways) continued to be nurtured and practiced. While Doyle drew as a boy in school and later as a young man,it was not until the 1960s, when he retired, that he was finally able to devote himself full-time to artmaking. He proudly shared his robust paintings with the public by displaying the finished works in his yard, which he sometimes called the St. Helena Outdoor Art Gallery.

John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson and Billy Carter, locals like Reverend Cathit and Dr. Buzzard, as well as sports stars were among his favorite subjects.

Doyle credited God with giving him the inspiration to paint, and he was a devout member of his church.

According to the artist, Reverend Cathit was "called that because you catch it from him every Sunday in church!"

Doyle typically painted his figures against a solid-color background. In Rev.Cathit, the bright yellow backdrop exploits the raw energy of the preacher's sweeping gestures, and perfectly captures the hand-clapping,footstomping spiritual release of a Sunday Baptist service.

S

48 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

CHILD'S EAGLE-FORM CHARIOT R. Schwarz Toy & Fancy Goods Co. Boston c. 1877 Paint on wood and metal 3 4" 23/ 3 4>< 56/ 1 2 x 20/ Gift of The Bee Publishing Company, Helen and Scudder Smith 2001.1.1

TRAMP ART SHELF Artist unidentified United States 1940 Wood 18 25 7" Gift of Sam and Myra Gotoff 2002.26.1

aking decorative and useful objects from recycled cigar boxes and packing crates became a popular masculine pastime from about the 1880s through the 1930s. The Revenue Act of 1865 had mandated the use of wooden cigar boxes—commonly made from mahogany, cedar, pine, and more than fifty other types of wood—but did not permit them to be reused. Combined with the increasing volume of railroad travel and the shipping of goods in wooden crates, an enormous amount of raw material became freely available to the hobbyist. The technique of"chip-carving" wood was widespread throughout many areas of Europe, particularly in Germany and Scandinavia. As emigration from these areas and other countries increased through the late nineteenth century, wooden objects inspired by their native traditions flourished. While there is no reason to dispute that the whittling done by itinerants gave rise to the term "tramp art" that is popularly applied to this type of work, many men from stable households also made tramp art. This shelf is a beautifully conceived and finished work that employs tramp art elements in a restrained manner to provide ornamentation and to simulate crystal drops. Dated 1940, the applied duck and geometric motifs recall the shooting targets at popular amusement parks of the period, such as Coney Island.

W

PINK STANDING FIGURE Judith Scott lb. 1943) Oakland, California Before 1991 Yarn and mixed media 511 / 2 10 • 6/ 1 2" Gift of Creative Growth Art Center 2002.21.3 WHITE NEST Judith Scott lb. 1943) Oakland, California 1992 Yarn and mixed media 12 18 28" Gift of Creative Growth Art Center 2002.21.1

Gavin Ashworth, New York

orking since 1987 at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California, Judith Scott has created carefully crafted large-scale sculptures made of wrapped and stitched yarn that are absolutely distinctive in form. Creative Growth Art Center is a workshop site promoting creative and artistic activity for people with disabilities. Scott has Down's syndrome, and is deaf. These physical and mental realities have not prevented her from building formidable fiber arts with mysterious emotional and expressive power. Part of the mystery of her work is our inability to know Scott's intentions—why she engages in this activity, and what the sculpture means to her. Scott is a twin who was separated from her twin sister, Joyce, for thirty-five years. One wonders whether each work is somehow a reference to that separation, and also whether each work might represent her healthy twin. Now reunited, Joyce currently cares for Judith.

Most of Scott's sculptures have an understructure composed offound objects: fans,foam-packaging pieces, yarn cones, and any type of miscellany available in the environment at Creative Growth. On occasion, Scott will take items from the workshop space not meant for artmaking and work them into her sculpture. Stealing and hiding may be behaviors of survival she adopted during her more than three decades in a staterun institution. The artist then enlists a wide range of techniques to wrap, stitch, knit, and crochet available yarn around the objects. She wraps until the interior items are hidden and obliterated. The sculptures sometimes recall cocoons and nests or human figures and totems.

The evolution and development of Scott's artistic practice is stunning, and the distinct presence of her sculpture is singular. While there are artist-teachers at Creative Growth,Scott apparently works largely untutored and independent of the many craft classes conducted throughout the day. Scott's sculpture is unlike any other work produced in this workshop setting, and her commitment to her material—yarn—and her process—wrapping—is long standing.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 49

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MISSIONARY, PREACHER, ARTIST EXCERPTS FROM THE EXHIBITION CATALOG TOOLS OF HER MINISTRY:

THE ART

SISTER gERTRUDE MORGAN

By William A. Fagaly ister Gertrude Morgan was a missionary and preacher, an artist, a musician, a poet, and a writer possessed of a profound religious faith. Her many talents all served as a vehicle for and material extension of her calling to serve SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN USING A MEGAPHONE AND TAPPER TO ASSIST IN HER SERVICE IN THE PRAYER ROOM OF THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL MISSION Owen Murphy New Orleans 1973 Gelatin silver print 8 10" New Orleans Museum of Art, gift of Owen Murphy, 91.65

Owen Murphy. New Orleans

God and spread the gospel. From the time she received the first of several divine revelations, she took to the streets to testify.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 51

52 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Montgomery as a nursemaid, and ultimately to New Orleans, where she arrived in 1939. The two lifestyles have little correlation to each other.

For her to leave behind her husband and her relatives in Columbus after twenty-one years took great courage and conviction and was, undoubtedly, a frightening yet emboldening experience. She was unwavering in her belief that God was at her side during this spiritual rebirth. Although she never clearly revealed her purpose for choosing to relocate to Louisiana's largest city, one could surmise that

ness and Sanctified faith, a loosely organized African-American sect that emphasizes communication with God through music, song, and dance, they raised money by performing on the streets of New Orleans in black robes with white collars and sashes, as depicted in The Barefoot Prophetesses. It is not known what kind of relationship, if any, Morgan sustained with her family back in Georgia, but this new household became her surrogate family."God took me away from my people. This is where He wants me to be. This is my home."'

EPHESIANS 1:1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12 n.d.

Acrylic and/or tempera, crayon, and ballpoint ink on cardboard 28 22" New Orleans Museum of Art, gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander, 98.194

ohn Parnell, New York

Born in 1900 to farmers Frances and Edward Williams, Gertrude was raised in Alabama, spending time in Lafayette, Opelika, and Girard, which is now part of Phenix City on the banks of the Chatahoochee River. When she was in her late teens, Gertrude moved with her mother and her seven siblings across the river to Columbus, Georgia.' There she turned to religion, becoming an active member of the Rose Hill Memorial Baptist Church. Her affiliation with this congregation was the genesis of her allconsuming commitment to God. As she later wrote on the back of her painting depicting this house of worship,"This is the Rose Hill Memorial Baptist Church in Columbus, Ga., where God moved me and had me to sanctify my life for him.... Now that was a wonderful little church. God left me here one night after I had wandered. God showed me that dark great night."'

Gertrude married a man named Will Morgan at the age of twentyeight.3 Not much is known about her husband or their relationship, but in later recalling this time of her life, she said, "I was havin' a good time, goin' about my business, goin' to the picture show, and I liked to dance."4 She claimed to have experienced a number of milestone revelations from her Lord over the years, and each of these dramatically changed her direction and focus. The first of these revelations, coming when she was thirty-four years old, bisected her life: she took to her calling to sing and preach the gospel with an unreserved passion and left her so-called wild and secular youth behind. "Sitting in my Kitchen one night I heard a great Voice speak to me, said I'll make thee as a signet for I have chosen thee; I got this calling on the 30th day of Dec in 1934. I had to answer to my calling and one day give up and Pack up and go. Are you a chosen vessel of God's, its wonderful to be. God called me a chosed me and turned me into the hands of his son, and JESUS said take up your cross and follow me."5 Three years later, she received another revelation, and the following year she embarked on the journey that led her first back to Alabama, where she worked in Opelika and

the choice was predicated on that city's reputation for sin and evil—she may have felt that the place needed her, that New Orleans was where she could do the most good.

Gertrude Morgan, now a selfproclaimed Sister, arrived in New Orleans on February 26, 1939, after passing through Gentilly, a relatively rural neighborhood on the northeastern outskirts of the city. There she encountered two other missionaries, Mother Margaret Parker and Sister Cora Williams, and the three of them quickly found a common bond—religion—and a common purpose: the establishment of a mission and a home for children in Parker's eighteen-room house on Flake Avenue in Gentilly.6 As adherents of the Holi-

After many years of preaching on the streets and helping to sustain the mission, Sister Gertrude Morgan realized that art could play an important role in her life's work. "I used to paint when I was a child, you know . . . I started marking down some lines on the paper, it was some sort of box I was drawing. I made a line up thisaway, and one across up there, and one down here, and I says to myself, 'Now what is this, what can this be?' And the Lord said it was the New Jerusalem, and that's what it was!"8 Her artmaking had a definite purpose—to clarify her evangelical teachings that salvation is the result of faith and grace rather than something attained through good works and sacraments alone.

NEW JERUSALEM n.d.

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THE LAMB STANDING ON MOUNT ZION WITH HIS COMPANY n.d.

Acrylic and/or temperaand . wood pencil on Masonite with post 23sA 2334, (without Post) Collection of the Jaffe Family

54 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

About the same time, she preachers or other performers. It received yet another divine revela- is possible she brought artworks tion: she was selected, she said, to be along to illustrate her sermons; she the bride of Christ. "Big dada darling, certainly used them in her lessons to when you Brought me forth I didn't neighborhood children in the Lower no when I grew up I was gone Be Ninth Ward.'2 your wife. I would have had a desire When she moved into Jennie to never sin in my life."9 As a symbol Johnson's house at 5444 North of this spiritual union, she discarded Dorgenois, Morgan made it the base her black robes in favor of immacu- of operations for her missionary late, all-white garments.° While in work, ultimately christening the simher work she often adorned herself in ple, white shotgun house the Evera white bridal gown, her everyday lasting Gospel Mission.'3 In keeping garments were more reminiscent of a with her pristine white clothing, Mornurse's uniform—a starched white gan maintained a whitewashed dress and cape, white stockings, environment within her mission. white shoes, and a white peaked hat The walls and floors and ceiling of or bonnet with chin strap—harking the main room—which she called the back to her days as a nursemaid in Prayer Room—and its simple furAlabama. nishings were all painted or covered Sister Morgan left the Flake in white. It was from this sanctuary Avenue house in May 1957." (Sister that Sister Morgan conducted her Cora Williams died in 1944. It is not prayer services, with the tools of her known why Morgan split with ministry at hand: her Bible (also covMother Margaret Parker, but appar- ered in white), paintings, a pointer ently the orphanage closed about that (with which she could also tap out a same time for lack of necessary funds rhythm), a tambourine, and a paper to make repairs to the building to megaphone (hand painted with biblimeet the city housing codes.) Until cal imagery, of course), as if her comshe moved in with an elderly widow manding voice could not reach the named Jennie Johnson, sometime four corners of the small room. between 1963 and 1965, in the city's The porch was utilized efficiently as Lower Ninth Ward, Morgan drifted well; Morgan called it the Front throughout that neighborhood, Gallery, and she posted signs residing with whoever was kind and propped paintenough to take her in, ings there to alert or perhaps the public to the vtaA10' boarding in mission within. : 1 41 6L4-raexchange for r ';MoNopTtg; Sister Mor-‘ A 000Plt F working as gan's religious tsd re ! yon.Au-,IJTlr a nanny or " expression held 0 4t );14 EA CA I. Tpa Nq nursemaid. a certain amount HE fro/0 oF ,1 y ASTvEv Presumof autonomy rmoimp A4FA ably Morgan ticARDTH E voicV and spontaneCIR PER •S tiplpvii_ was also perity; but her 1405ONTHEik ea forming in the practices were f!'s nrr ey ietts.

Pfv streets of the rooted in the French Quarter gospel traI Z71 ' C. r•-•(Nine/ throughout this ditions of the P F.,;;5 "011 rt „'• so i ma " a rpi oPA period, although Baptists and she didn't docuthe Holiness ment these activimovement. She accenties with much specificity in her tuated her prayer services with writings. This historic section of music—singing and playing the New Orleans has always mainguitar, beating a tambourine, or tained a vibrant social scene, with clapping wooden blocks many bars and restaurants and together—and chanting, like a shops and galleries and colorful call-and-response sermon. characters contained within a tight Accompanied by a persistent grid. It was not unusual to beat, she would repeat words encounter street musicians or like "power," "hallelujah," and

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"amen" over and over, in an improvisational manner. Sister Morgan's performances were possessed of a unique power to intoxicate, to mesmerize, to rivet, but were often difficult to listen to over an extended period. She did not cover the full octave range or sing melodic tunes; she droned on in a loud, husky monotone that verged on shouting.

This seemingly endless intonation of repeated words or phrases is a practice that evolved from West African origins.

About 1960, while Morgan was preaching in the French Quarter—probably at what was apparently her usual spot, on Saint Peter Street between Royal and Bourbon—she met well-known local entrepreneur and art dealer E. Lorenz "Larry" Borenstein." The encounter would change Sister Gertrude Morgan's life forever.

Borenstein invited Morgan to show her work and to perform in his art gallery, Associated Artists Studio, which was located at 726 Saint Peter in a beautifully weathered wooden building dating to 1750.'5 Borenstein often had musicians perform in his gallery, an arrangement that benefited both himself and the performers: the musicians earned money from audience contributions; the music lured intrigued passersby.

Recognizing Sister Morgan's special gifts and need for financial support, Borenstein helped her keep her mission operating by making her artwork available for sale and arranging Sunday performances in his gallery.'6 Some of Morgan's works were displayed in open bins, but most were framed by Borenstein in inexpensive (usually recycled) frames, with the artwork mounted on a colored cloth, such as burlap. The unlikely association between the educated, wealthy, white, Jewish businessman and the mostly uneducated, poor, black, Christian missionary woman lasted twenty years, and served them both well. With his business savvy and dogged promotion, Borenstein made the work of Sister Gertrude Morgan, both artistic and missionary, well known throughout the country. He looked after her welfare and attended to her simple needs.

Borenstein's support, however, did

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 55

not stop in the gallery. If anyone wished to meet Sister Gertrude Morgan, Borenstein would drive them to the Everlasting Gospel Mission, where she invariably "held court" and conducted an on-the-spot prayer meeting, reading Scripture and singing hymns with the visitor.

Borenstein and other friends brought Morgan the groceries she requested, and she depended on their generosity to pay her bills and to take care of other everyday needs.17 The Everlasting Gospel Mission, however, did not truly belong to Sister Morgan; she was merely a guest (or an employee) of Jennie Johnson's.

When Johnson died, sometime in late 1965 or shortly thereafter, her godchild Deborah Butler inherited the property and put it up for sale.'8 Not wanting Sister Morgan to lose her mission, Borenstein and his business associate Allan Jaffe (also a patron of Sister Morgan's) quietly bought the house, allowing the preacher to continue to live and work there unimpeded by worrisome rent and repair costs.'9 Early in 1974, when Sister Gertrude Morgan was nearly seventyfour years old, she shocked Borenstein with the announcement that the Lord had commanded her to cease making art: she explained that because the fame and income her artwork provided was unacceptable to God, she should concentrate solely on her poetry as a creative outlet. This decision may have been her indirect way of dealing with her apparently failing eyesight. In the last six years of her life, Morgan made almost no paintings, although she would occasionally insert a tiny figure within the lines of her written poems.

Sister Gertrude Morgan died peacefully in her sleep on July 8, 1980. It is assumed that she died of heart failure. She was buried in a pauper's grave in Providence Memorial Park Cemetery, just outside the city, but her funeral was held at the House of Bultman, on St. Charles Avenue, uptown New Orleans' most respected funeral home.2° Larry Borenstein arranged, with Muriel Bultman Francis, owner of the funeral home and one of the leading figures in the New Orleans arts community, to have the services held in the small chapel of

56 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

this socially prominent establishment.

Undoubtedly, Sister Gertrude Morgan was the first African American in New Orleans to be so honored.

•••

Sister Gertrude Morgan was a selftaught artist. Although a chronology of Morgan's artistic output is possible through stylistic analysis, it cannot be definitive and precise, for while she almost always signed her artworks, she rarely dated them. Morgan did not conceive of the paintings she was making as "art," but as tools of her ministry, so it is likely that it simply did not occur to her to date them—it was not important to the message.

Morgan reports that she began producing art in 1956, but it was not until about 1960 that Borenstein began taking an interest in her and her work. Therefore, it is not known whether the so-called early crayons are indeed the first works from the late 1950s, before Borenstein entered the artist's life, or are from the early 1960s, after their milestone meeting.

The lack of dates on most of the works, which would be an important guide, presents one impediment. Further adding to the difficulty is the fact that those few works with dates do

not necessarily correspond to a stylistic pattern. From this it could be concluded that her style wavered and did not conform to a logical and convenient stylistic progression. With these caveats in mind, however, a rough outline can be attempted.

The earliest works, all unsigned, are generally characterized as having solely biblical subjects and having been executed mostly in crayon on cardboard. They do not feature integrated texts beyond descriptive titles or labels, but they do often bear writing, sometimes profuse, on the reverse. Occasionally, the artist seems to have changed her mind and completely obliterated inscriptions on the front with crayon, as is evident in Joseph Sold into Egypt. Notably, the figural forms in these drawings bear none of the sophistication found in later works.

In general, Morgan's style cannot be traced to any particular influences, although there are a few exceptions in early works that evolved from the crayon pieces, with images that may have been copied, traced, or inspired by other illustrations, most likely from illustrated Bibles or religious publications. They display a more refined palette, with

JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT n.d.

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THE SAINTS ETERNAL HOME REV 21.1 n.d.

Acrylic and/or tempera, ballpoint ink, pencil, and watercolor on cardboard 8/ 1 2 15/ 1 2" Collection of the Jaffe Family

more complex compositions bearing a remarkable sophistication of depth of field, indicating a foreground, middle ground, and background. An extraordinary painting on cardboard, The Saints Eternal Home Rev 21.1, demonstrates a facility with liquid media using wax crayon. The paint is applied in layers of carefully dabbled wash, creating a luminosity and a heavenly quality appropriate for its subject matter, from the twenty-first chapter of Revelation.("And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.") This piece and similar works feature well-defined animal and figural forms and possess a tentative but more exacting draftsmanship than that of the earliest crayons. The presumed tracing or copying of forms actually resulted in some interesting spatial relationships not evident in later works, which are organized on a more conventional plane. Selfportraits are, however, rare among these first works.

Growing out of these early crayons and watercolors is a style characterized by ever more complex compositions, populated with a greater number of figures that are delineated with more definition.

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Inscriptions also became more integral to the compositions. Crayon and watercolors were combined with tempera and/or acrylic paints that offered a new opacity and vibrancy, demonstrating Morgan's fine color sense.

The compositions contain clusters or rows of figures in tiers and a great deal more scripted text throughout. In most of these works, the figures are not grounded on a single plane, but seem to float.

These early works are followed by a group of paintings that could be characterized as being of the middle period, in which the artist's technique becomes more painterly, with looser brushwork. There appears a new exuberance: raw, brighter acrylic and/or tempera paints are applied without mixing, and with seemingly more spontaneous brushstrokes. At the same time, the compositions become even more complex, with an obsessive filling in of the total picture plane. The paintings of this period include the spectacularly compounded New Jerusalem paintings, which she reported to have begun painting in 1966; this is the main body of work for which Sister Gertrude Morgan is most well known.'

2 The loud and brassy style is in marked contrast to the early, rather

quiet and tentative crayons and watercolors. Her painterly skies often consist of myriad horizontal streaks of bright color, particularly oranges, reds, and yellows.

Morgan's choice of subject matter in the middle period conformed to two general themes—biblical and autobiographical—that often overlapped in a single composition.

Self-portraits abound in the art, but works revealing her activities in Alabama and Georgia and her early days in New Orleans are less common, and provide rare insight. Most often she painted herself in the white frock, white cap, white stockings, and white shoes that she wore every day from about 1957 to her death in 1980.

When coupled with her groom— "dada Jesus" or "dada God" (or both)—she is adorned with bridal veil and bouquet. In one repeated motif, she and Jesus fly side by side in an open, birdlike airplane, illustrating her personal credo, "Jesus is my air Plane."22 She explained the image as follows: "I Realize time is flying, as Jesus had me to give a message to the world telling them time is flying, and after that he taken my hand and Begin to draw a air Plane, and him and I in the Plane. ..."23 The events of the Book of Revelation, perhaps the best

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 57

known of all Christian writings, assumed prominence in Sister Morgan's preaching and artwork.

Although modern eschatologists warn that these writings should not be interpreted literally or as foretelling the future, but accepted as an allegory of the ever-present struggle between good and evil and between organized religion and the secular world, Sister Gertrude Morgan, like most Evangelicals, took the words literally, faithfully delineating them in her works without any interpretation.

The apocalyptic text of the Book of Revelation offers a plethora of visionary images: the Apocalypse and its Four Horsemen, the Antichrist, the Whore of Babylon, the Beast (with the mark 666), the heavenly book of seven seals, Armageddon, the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, the millennial kingdom of Christ on Earth, and the New Jerusalem.

The last of these held the greatest interest for Sister Morgan.

The compositions illustrating the New Jerusalem are distinguishable because they all feature a multistoried, rectangular structure resembling an apartment building.24 The twenty-first chapter of Revela-

58 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

tion describes the New Jerusalem as a holy city "coming down from God out of heaven." Even though Morgan repeated this subject many times, each one is unique in composition, and the image evolved over the years. It was a joyous tabernacle: "People, the Lord God and His son Jesus Christ is using me for their wife to keep house for them in the New Jerusalem.0 what a sweet and happy life. I thank you dada God for wanting me."25 Some of these compositions exhibited the holy city as a cluster of buildings within a landscape, as seen in New Jerusalem. In others it took the form of a structure—or an assemblage of attached buildings—barely confined within the edges of the paper. Several buildings are missing the front facade to reveal a lively habitat of furnished rooms and residents. Great attention to detail was lavished on the New Jerusalem constructions, which were often shown from multiple perspectives in a single image—as seen in New Jerusalem Court, Gloryland St., a quietly imposing composition in which the structure fills almost the entire surface. Penciled on cardboard with a uniformity of line, the facade

curves around to reveal the building's left and right sides, which in turn reach up and inward to grasp the arc of the roof. The roof itself, treated with a pale wash of white, is neatly punctuated with three red, rectangular forms—chimneys, perhaps, or windows. Sister Morgan's economy of color—red, white, blue, and a flash of yellow for two doors and a stairway—works to emphasize the protective nature of the tabernacle in the new holy city. This is in contrast to other New Jerusalem paintings, in which the building is dense, colorful, and pulsating with energy.

Text began to assume prominence in Morgan's later works, the inscriptions no longer simply annotating the images—rather the images became shorthand illustrations of the text. Two large, complex, and highly saturated double-sided compositions on window shades—Book of Revelation, measuring 3 by 6 feet, and The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, measuring 4 by 7 feet—epitomize this period. Undoubtedly, these two masterworks are the crowning achievements of Morgan's career as an artist. These "charters," as she referred to them, dared to copy out

THE REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE (recto) n.d.

Acrylic and/or tempera, pencil, and ballpoint ink on plastic window shade 477/k, 837/8" New Orleans Museum of Art, gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander, 84.90 Present location unknown

NEW JERUSALEM COURT, GLORYLAND ST. n.d.

Acrylic and/or tempera, ballpoint ink, and pencil on cardboard 12/ 3 4 x 12/ 3 4" Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans, gift of the Friends of the Cabildo, 1981.106.001

and illustrate most of, if not the entire text of, the Book of Revelation, the central thesis of her mission.26 They were meant to be used as teaching aids. Several tiers of intertwined text, complete with chapter headings, are interspersed with small, tightly drawn images—a medley of miniature motifs found repeatedly in the larger body of her work. Smaller charters most likely number fewer than a dozen and contain only portions of this last book of the Scriptures, but they are composed in a similar fashion and are no less sensational.

In other works the written text dominates, with only a small figure or two integrated into the lines of text, as seen in Ephesians 1:1.2.3.4.5.

6.7.8.9.10.11.12. This was also the period in which Morgan was committed to writing poetry rather than making paintings—tracts of text are broken up with small, solitary illustrations of an angel, for example, or other biblical motifs. It is not clear whether the text-heavy works represent the

artist's latest period, or whether she was still making paintings as well.

Many compositions that probably date to the early seventies possess a very loose, almost agitated brushstroke and daring color associations. By this time, some of the compositions became so compact and dense that there is essentially no space between figures. The inscriptions are less assured and reveal a shaky, uneven hand. Failing eyesight could explain this less defined, more disjointed paint application. Other paintings most likely dating from this late period include five double-sided works on squares of cardboard. Each appears to be an unfinished sketch, some with loose brushstrokes of paint and others incomplete pencil drawings. They have a gestural quality, with images confidently laid down in quick notations.

Sister Gertrude Morgan memorized large portions of the Bible, if not its entirety, a practice common to Holiness and Sanctified movement adherents as well as to Pentecostals.

Throughout her oeuvre, verses from both the Old and New Testaments are quoted verbatim, and sometimes only the book, chapter, and verse are cited without the text. On the numerous occasions when she wrote out biblical passages—some quite lengthy—they were written extemporaneously, and she evidently did not stop to refer to the source. When she assigned numerous biblical references to the same image, she knew what each of those verses was without looking them up. In some instances, there are minor discrepancies with actual biblical verse, which strengthens the conclusion that the original text was not consulted or directly copied. Moreover, Morgan apparently did not receive schooling beyond the third grade.27 It is unclear why her education ended at such a young age (there is no evidence that she began working before her late teens), but it's possible she had a learning disability or behavioral problems; she later stated that she "was a peculiar little person in childhood days."28 If her formal education was indeed so abbreviated, as she reported, it is not known how she ultimately learned to read and write with such facility.

In the late works in which text predominates, lines and splashes of color are sometimes added between rows of written text and between individual words, demonstrating a consuming need to fill empty space.

Sentences and phrases generally wrap around the illustrations in columns, but in many cases words are interrupted by images, as though in her great haste to commit her thoughts to paper she could not be hindered by the composition. Conceivably, Morgan's most enchanting works, both in design and content, are the six known "alphabet" compositions—four of which are devoid of any imagery— which consist of original verses beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Between tight bands of script on horizontal sheets of paper, she freely applied dots and dashes of color to create a lyrical waltz dancing across the page. These alphabet poems provide a rewarding glimpse into the artist's thought process, as they ramble on in a disjointed fashion much like Morgan's verbal preachings.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 59

•

From the scores of people who knew the artist in the 1960s and 1970s, and from this writer's own experiences, it is safe to say that Sister Gertrude Morgan was a truly charismatic individual. Those who met her agree that they were in the presence of someone special. Her gravelly, alto voice was strong and commanding, her body frame solid, her countenance stern and determined. She wouldn't just preach or sing the gospel, she would shout the gospel. She was strong willed, not afraid to stand up to the devil of her religion. Upon examination of her life, it is absolutely clear that she was a person of dogged focus and remarkable direction. For Sister Morgan, working for her Lord Jesus and His teachings was a full-time commitment—it occupied her twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: "I been laboring on hedge and highroad...trying to get people to get on that clean train for Jesus; I got a lot of people whose cases I'm praying on, and sometimes it just gets me all wore out, but you know, you got to swing, you got to push to keep out the devil."'

Sister Gertrude Morgan rose from a life of obscurity and disadvantage to touch many people's lives.

Her later life's mission was to celebrate the teachings of Jesus Christ. She dutifully served Him through personal sacrifice, committed to warning people of the presence of sin and evil and imploring them to push it from their lives. Her artwork and musical performances were the tools she chose to fulfill that heavenly calling. Morgan's message constitutes her legacy, and the world is a richer place for her presence. Even today, the body of work Sister Gertrude Morgan created continues to carry out her exalted mission.* William A. Fagaly is the guest curator of the American Folk Art Museum's exhibition, "Tools ofHer Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan." He is the Francoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum ofArt, where he has held various positions, including curator ofcontemporary American self-taught art and assistant directorfor art, since 1966. Fagaly has served as curator ofmore than seventy-

60 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

five art exhibitions, such as "Louisiana Folk Paintings," a three-artist exhibition including Sister Gertrude Morgan, which was presented at the American Folk Art Museum in 1973.

Notes 1 They were renting a house at 1603 Fifth Avenue. See the Fourteenth Census ofthe United States: 1920—Population, Muscogee County, Georgia, Supervisor's District No.4,Enumeration District No. 104, Sheet No. 15B, p. 7,293. The whereabouts of Morgan's father are not recorded.

2 Rose Hill Memorial Baptist Church, collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the University of New Orleans.

3 Muscogee County, Ga., marriage certificate No. 1,123. There seem to have been no children as a result of the marriage, and there is no record of a divorce, but when Sister Morgan left Columbus ten years later, it was without her husband.

4 Sandi Donnelly,"The Red Light Came On: She's Painting to Speak the Gospel in a New Form,"(New Orleans) Times-Picayune, Dec. 12, 1972, sec. 2, p. 2.

5 Inscription on 1324 NO AVE COLUMBUS GA., collection of Gary R. Davenport.

6 Sister Gertrude Morgan, letter to Regenia Perry, c. 1971-1973. The entire Morgan/Perry correspondence is in the collection of Dr. Kurt Gitter and Alice Rae Yelen. There are numerous references to Morgan's move to New Orleans in her artworks and in newspaper interviews.

7 Little Margaret Parker [Mother Margaret's daughter], interview by the author, New Orleans, August 8, 1998.

8 Guy Mendes,"The Gospel According to Sister Gertrude Morgan: Jesus Is My Airplane, and That's All Right! Who Is Sister Gertrude? The Prophetess Anna,the Bride of Christ, the Nurse to Doctor Jesus, the Housekeeper for Dada God,and the Everlasting Gospel Revelation Painter," unpublished transcription, 1974, p. 2.

9 Inscription on this is thefather the head man ofall, collection of Keith Sadler.

10 "OH HOW I THANK THE LORD HE BLESSED THIS SOUL OF MINE.I DID MY MISSION WORK IN THE BLACK ROBE AROUND 18 YEARS TEACHING HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT GREAT WORK WAS SO

DEAR. HE HAVE TAKEN ME OUT OF THE BLACK ROBE AND CROWNED ME OUT IN WHITE WE ARE NOW IN REVELATION HE MARRIED ME I'M HIS WIFE";inscription on A Poem ofMy Calling, collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander, 2000.108. There is a strong tradition in evangelical Christianity, especially as it is preached in fundamentalist churches, that the church itself—and the body of Christian believers—is the "bride of Christ." By extension, every individual believer, at least symbolically, is married to Christ. In African-American Pentecostal or Holiness churches, women often dress in white gowns and veils as a symbol of their sanctification and of their sta-

tus as "brides of Christ." Gerard C. Wertkin, e-mail to author, April 17, 2003.

11 Little Margaret Parker, interview by the author, New Orleans, August 8, 1998.

See also Mendes, op. cit., p. 2: "I left out there in Gentilly in May 1957. God was making a change. Fifty-seven, that's when He crowned me in white, when He crowned me out as the Bride of Christ, saying I was that angel John saw in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation."

12 Dolores Akers, telephone interview by the author, June 16, 1996; and Shirley Akers,telephone interview by the author, July 14, 1996.

13 In previous literature, this house has been mistakenly located in Saint Bernard Parish or in the adjacent community of Arabi.

14 Larry Borenstein, several interviews by the author, New Orleans, 1973; and Richard Allen, interview by the author, New Orleans, June 21, 1996. Allen, a jazz historian, reports that he saw Sister Morgan on the street,"preaching and strum-

THE BAREFOOT PROPHETESSES n.d.

Watercolor, acrylic, and/or tempera, and pencil on paper 111 / 2 16" American Folk Art Museum, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin C. Braman, 1983.14.4

ming the guitar," in the 1950s and 1960s.

15 In July 1961, Borenstein moved Associated Artists to a building he owned next door, and rented its former space to music lovers Barbara Reid, William Edmiston, Ken Grayson Mills, and jazz historian Bill Russell, who collectively formed the Society for the Preservation of Traditional Jazz. The organization championed the African-American musical pioneers who had performed at the dawn ofjazz in New Orleans, and who had been forgotten in recent times.

Six months later, Borenstein took over society operations, changed the organization's name to Preservation Hall, and brought in Allan Jaffe, a recent Wharton School graduate, to serve as business manager. Preservation Hall and its traveling band remain highly renowned throughout the world, and the venue continues to showcase traditional New Orleans jazz every night of the week.

16 "[Mr. Borenstein] Buy the Pictures from me,I sell's them to him for so much and so much Just as I have them. I charge $50 for the last Big Charter, they Run according to the size from 50 on Back down to $15,I Believe a kinder small one I think to 3 years ago—now the Pictures don't Run as high as the Charters, so[now]I think I got here to turn in to him this Sunday 40 to 50 dollars worth, when I make them without so many little ones with them I charge around 30 or $35." Morgan,letter to Regenia Perry, Dec.4, 1972.

17 Mrs. Willie Brown,telephone interview by the author, Oct. 4, 1996; and Regenia Perry, interview by the author, New Orleans, July 10, 1996.

18 The inscription on the painting Herricane Betsey, collection of Kristina Johnson, cites the presence of Jennie Johnson at the house when the devastating hurricane hit New Orleans on Sept. 9, 1965.

19 Pat Borenstein Nicholas, interview by the author, New Orleans, April 23, 1996. The house, which is still standing, has been extensively remodeled, with a gray brick exterior and different columns on the porch.

20 The cemetery is now named Providence Park & Mausoleum. The death certificate incorrectly listed Sister Gertrude Morgan's date of birth as January 1, 1900. The cause of death is not listed.

21 Morgan,letter to Perry, August 1972.

22 This vivid phrase was not Sister Gertrude Morgan's invention; it was probably appropriated from the lyrics of the hymn "Oh, Jesus Is My Air-o-plane," recorded by Mother McCollum in 1930. See Lawrence Cohn,ed., Nothing But the Blues: The Music and the Musicians(New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), pp. 122-23. According to the notes in the Document Records album Guitar Evangelists 1928495/(DOCD-5101),this track was recorded in Chicago in mid-June 1930. My thanks to Jim Linderman for this valuable information.

23 Morgan,letter to Perry, May 24, 1973.

24 "And the Lord said it was the New Jerusalem, and that's what it was! See, it's just like an apartment building with twelve floors." Mendes, op. cit., p. 2.

25 Mendes, op. cit., p. 1.

26 It has been suggested that a third large charter exists, in a vertical format, but its whereabouts are presently unknown; Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., interview by the author, Oct. 23, 1996.

27 "But I didn't go to school only awhile,and!got in the third grade in my Books. But didn't go through the third grade, and I didn't no any thing about artist work...."; Morgan,letter to Perry, Dec.4, 1972.

28 Ibid.

29 Mendes, op. cit., p. 2.

The American Folk Art Museum presents TOOLS OF HER MINISTRY: THE ART OF SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN FEBRUARY 25-SEPTEMBER 26, 2004 ister Gertrude Morgan was an African-American self-taught artist, evangelist, musician, and poet who used her diverse talents as a vehicle for and an extension of her profound religious faith. Transcending the cultural bathers between art, institutional religion, and individual spirituality, Morgan's life and art combine the African-American tradition of autonomous religious expression with a remarkable inherent artistic sensibility. The American Folk Art Museum presents "Tools of Her 4 A Ministry: The Art of Sister #' i 4 4 44 11 , ' 4 AP I i..• Gertrude Morgan," the first e ag le + A '4 ' '1. ' yi 1i. comprehensive retrospective t 4 . l,"1 i. ,A I*1 6 4., it , s.. , - h .',. .4 _ ( ' of Morgan's work. *- ..4.9 yr ).. t ,, ' Is. if Comprising approxi4. ... ....

11" ...

41' a:) , 44 : ' 4 ift :.* :•11 144 111 . . .....4 4 A- •.%* ". h mately one hundred paintings ta _11 . ir ..„. .h, - ••- ... .,- .'...-• ... • : tl! • a .". ., , v •• and decorated objects, the , ' ! is • 1/ 0 .

• it -'w ' ''''' exhibition is organized by " •• •v 6 •' "IP 4 t k - ''' s' g 4 • guest curator William A. a• 4" 4, * ''''' . e • • .

•4 .3" * 6.' ,1,..." of Fagaly, Francoise Billon W *r t * 'a, 4 Jer. , , 4 *4 a* .a., • a Richardson Curator of African 0. •• XX ,t. , , , 4 e I. •1 Art at the New Orleans v,1 t 4 '''....".. f:o-• ,, $ i ,, Museum of Art. Fagaly is the 444 '' : ' eigell ;: 3 ' 4 : 4 leading scholar of Sister Gertrude t . 1 \ 4 4 *' 1.'. i ‘ 1 `* Morgan's life and work and was .. a4 le her personal friend. Although she sel, k 0 i. dom dated her work,the exhibition will ..... so be organized along chronological lines, with ••• • it paintings and objects divided into early, middle, 4 and late periods, as determined by style, medium, and content. Visitors will get a sense of the artist's PARADISE: I NO WE CAN personal presence through documentary photographs REIGN HERE [recto] n.d. and a recording of her music.

Acrylic and/or tempera and Tools ofHer Ministry: The Art ofSister ballpoint ink on cardboard cutout Gertrude Morgan, a 120-page, full-color catalog—the 111 / 2 91 / 2" first devoted to the artist—accompanies the exhibition. Collection of Robert A. Roth In addition to an updated biography, William Fagaly's principal essay includes an in-depth stylistic analysis of her art. New Orleans journalist and historian Jason Berry describes the bohemian atmosphere in the French Quarter during Morgan's day. A third essay, by art historian Helen M.Shannon, executive director of the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, provides a discussion of possible cultural and visual sources for the artist's work. The catalog includes color plates of more than two-thirds of the artworks in the exhibition, and will be available at the American Folk Art Museum's Book and Gift Shop upon the exhibition's opening.

4

"Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan," on view from February 25 to September 26, 2004,is made possible with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Robert A. Roth, and the LEF Foundation.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 61

FR 200i/2004 'rot,

RT

PIRITUAL EFUGL

FIVE EARLY WORKS BY NEK CHAND

By Cheryl Rivers

MITHUNA PLAQUE c. 1965 Tinted concrete over metal armature 33 10 15" 2001.13.5

In March 2001, the city of Chandigarh, India, celebrated the silver jubilee of artist Nek Chand's extraordinary Rock Garden, one of the world's most important folk environments. The five-day festival, marking the Rock Garden's twenty-fifth anniversary as a public park, included a joyous parade of floats decorated with Nek Chand's largerthan-life-size figures; performances of Punjabi folk dance and music; a seminar about the creation of the Rock Garden; gala banquets; and speeches by government officials, scholars, and friends. On the final night of the jubilee, Nek Chand received awards from international arts groups, including a citation expressing the American Folk Art Museum's recognition of his achievement and his devotion to his vision. With characteristic generosity, Nek Chand responded by presenting the museum with a gift of five outstanding early sculptures. In these five worksâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; two plaques with figures in relief that the artist made for his own pleasure, and three freestanding figures intended for possible installation in the Rock Gardenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Nek Chand translates traditional and vernacular art forms into his own visual vocabulary. These works, with a weathered patina that lends an iconic presence, eloquently express the artist's primary themes: the universality of all gods and beliefs, and the presence of the sacred in the ordinary.

Photography by August Sandal

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART CI

Nek Chand, like most selftaught artists, did not set out to be an artist or to address himself to such lofty themes. He does recount, however, that he was always an observant child who took pleasure in playing with humble materials, including broken glass bangles, a material he later used to great effect in the Rock Garden) His powers of observation and his interest in the aesthetic properties of common materials blossomed after he began working as a government road inspector in Chandigarh in the early 1950s, after receiving his matriculation from a secondary school near Lahore, Pakistan. Chandigarh, a model city on the order of Brasilia, was built after partition as the capital of Punjab. Nek Chand observed the building techniques of Le Corbusier, the designer of the city, and noted how poured cement could be used to make sweeping curves and dramatic angles. Inspired by the ambitious building going on around him and delighted by the wealth of cast-off materials available to him, Nek Chand embarked on his own ambitious project.

In 1958, Nek Chand began clearing out undergrowth in a public forest at the edge of the city. Beneath a thick canopy, he worked in secret at night from 8:00 to 12:00 by the light of burning tires. He gathered large, zoomorphic stones from a nearby riverbed and accumulated a stockpile of cast-off materials. He began to adapt the landscape itself, constructing concrete platforms on which to display the stones, and building walls of pebbles and broken ceramics, fluorescent bulbs, clay cooking pots, and other found materials set in concrete. He created concrete gorges, complete with concrete vegetation, wandering streams, and a waterfall. Sometime before 1970, he began to add multitudes of human and animal figures, also created out of concrete, clinker, broken tile, and broken glass bangles.

Despite its proximity to government buildings, Nek Chand's garden remained a secret until 1969,

64 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

when the artist called upon M.N. Sharma, the first Indian chief architect of Punjab and Chandigarh, who had taken over after the departure of Le Corbusier's team. Nek Chand's "uncanny arrangement of space" and "the hidden surprises [that] unfolded with every step" amazed the architect.2 Despite the illegality of Nek Chand's appropriation of public space, Mr. Sharma quietly became the artist's advocate. In 1973, the city of Chandigarh gave Nek Chand a salaried position as "Director/Creator" of the Rock Garden, and permitted the artist to hire a staff to assist him in his work. The Rock Garden opened as a public park in 1976.

With public support, Nek Chand could continue to expand his vision, and his fantasy world has continued to grow apace. The garden, now occupying more than twentyfive acres, includes waterfalls, amphitheaters used for performances, lush plantings, giant swings, and more than five thousand of his celebrated figural sculptures. Several thousand visitors come every day, making the Rock Garden one of India's most popular tourist destinations, second only to the Taj Mahal.

The Rock Garden is not merely an amusement park, however, but also a heavenly kingdom, which Nek Chand calls the Kingdom of the Gods

and Goddesses. The artist explains, "All the gods of the world are my gods ... I wanted to build a holy place where the universal meaning of all gods, Jehovah and Christ, Buddha and Lord Krishna, is respected."' By uniting his visitors in delight and childlike wonder, Nek Chand effectively shows that all peoples are one.

Chand's eloquent plea for universality undoubtedly reflects his desire that different ethnic and religious groups in India find ways to live together in harmony. Like many others, Nek Chand's family suffered owing to religious strife during the early years of partition, when they were forced to leave their native village because of their religious beliefs. More important, Nek Chand's belief that God is a universal force is one of the fundamental principles of Hinduism, a faith that recognizes all faiths in God as equal and seeks ways to meld opposites into unity.

Just as Nek Chand's message derives from his Indian culture, so does his artmaking. He is clearly familiar with classical arts as well as vernacular traditions, and a visitor to his out-of-doors storeroom can see his early experiments with traditional forms in dozens of miniature terracotta shrines shaped like temples, and in charming terra-cotta horses like those used throughout India as votive offerings. The two relief sculptures donated to the American Folk Art Museumâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;early works made before 1970â&#x20AC;&#x201D;are stunning examples of Nek Chand's experimentation with traditional forms.

While his chosen medium, concrete over metal armature, is his own, the form itself, a plaque or stela with relief carving and a rounded top, is a traditional form in Indian art often used for the depiction of gods and goddesses. The subject of the plaques is also classical. Each work is a mithuna, the auspicious depiction of an affectionate or amorous couple that celebrates the union of male and female. Mithuna couples represent

Mithuna couple near the entrance to the Chaitya Hall at Karli Buddhist Temple; Karli, India, late first to early second century A.D.

KIFTHUNA PLAQUE c. 1965 Tinted concrete over metal armature with shells 33 10,15" 2001.13.4

both the fertility of nature and the "notion of individual reintegration with the universal principle."4 The mithuna motif first appeared in Buddhist temples in the first century A.D., and was adopted into Hindu art in the depictions of sacred consort pairs such as Rama and Sita, Shiva and Parvati, and Krishna and Radha. Today, mithunas depicting Hindu gods and goddesses appear in ubiquitous popular forms such as "god posters," inexpensive chromolithographs of gods and goddesses sold for personal devotion; in advertisements for household products; and even as painted decorations on rickshaws and buses.

Nek Chand's mithunas bear a striking resemblance to the mithunas that guard the doorways of the rock-cut Buddhist temple at Karli, in western Deccan, India.

These relief carvings, from the late first or second century A.D., define the postural and gestural language

MALE FIGURE WEARING DHOTI C. 1965-1970 Tinted concrete over metal armature 33 6 6" 2001.13.3

68 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

of the motif.5 The female figures incline affectionately toward the male figures, who drape their arms around the female figures' neck. The female figures' posture, known as padasvastika, in which one leg supports the weight and the other leg is crossed, signifies "benevolent tranquillity and relaxation."6 In classical Hindu convention, the bent leg crosses before the weight-bearing leg; Nek Chand, however, follows the earlier Karli models, wherein the bent leg crosses behind the weight-bearing leg. In a posture known as samabhanga, the male figure stands with weight borne equally on both feet. This position signifies "tranquil equilibrium."7 Nek Chand also takes from the Karli models the frontal gaze that in religious art fosters an "I-Thou" relationship between the viewer and the sacred image.' This "personal contact with the deity" is, in fact, the primary goal of Hindu worship; the Hindu worshiper seeks darshan, translated from the Sanskrit as "seeing and being seen."9 In titling his mithunas "God at Rest," Nek Chand demonstrates his understanding of the posture and frontal gaze and his appreciation of the classical mithuna motif'0 By depicting his own mithuna figures in clothing identical to that of the Karli mithunas, Nek Chand further references these early Buddhist works. While much less voluptuous than the Karli figures are, Nek Chand's female figures wear the clothing worn in the first century A.D.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;multistranded beaded girdles, or mekhalas, and dhotis, saronglike cloths draped around the waist and knotted in the front for modesty. The standing female figure in the plaque depicting the couple close together also wears jewelry seen at Karli.

Here, Nek Chand uses concrete colored with ground bricks to highlight the prominent earrings and anklet.

Only one terra-cotta-colored earring has survived decades of exposure to weather. Nek Chand's male figures also owe much to the Karli mithunas.

The turban the male figure wears does not have the elaborate mushroom shape of its Karli predecessor, but takes its basic form from the original.

Weathering has obscured details that might further illustrate the work's connections with the Karli reliefs.

In the other mithuna plaque with figures in similar postures and dress, Nek Chand explores an important variation of the classical mithuna, in which an open space separating the male and female figures both heightens the sexual tension and emphasizes the unity into which male and female merge in the act of procreation.

Despite the distance between the figures, the male's hand still rests sweetly on his consort's shoulder.

Nek Chand no longer recalls looking at specific mithuna images as he was creating his own versions, but writes that the images of such consort pairs as Krishna and Radha might have been present in his subconscious mind. He continues, "May be, I created them early in the morning wee hours while my mind may be dreaming/meditating. Most of the elderly Indians sit and pray [to] God for the welfare of their family and the world at large during this time of the hour, and birds start chirping out of their nests." Nek Chand thus reiterates the significance of the motif: the loving couple as life forces, as forebears of families, as holy personages welcoming the attentions of devotees, and ultimately as the yearning of the soul to merge with the infinite.

Made before 1976 as part of a group of villagers, many of which are installed in the Rock Garden, the freestanding sculptures donated by Nek Chand also find antecedents in traditional Indian art. These delicate works belong to a tradition of genre scenes that illustrate the occupations, dress, customs, and festivities of ordinary people. Dressing his figures in peasant dress, the artist reminds us that his kingdom is home to all classes of people, notjust kings and queens. The female figures wear the characteristic dress of the states of Rajasthan and Gujrat: ghangras, or pleated skirts, and a simple scarf, or dupatta, at the neck.12 The fact that they do not wear blouses indicates that they belong to a more innocent past. The figures' knotted headdresses and carinated bracelets further place them in rural, tribal India. The male figure, in a simple dhoti, or loincloth, wears the everyday costume of village India that has prevailed for centuries. His small, peaked cap is characteristic of village dress in the northern states.

These villagers represent, perhaps, the common people whom Nek Chand describes as those "who have gone to heaven and live with the gods."3 The works given to the American Folk Art Museum cannot convey the scale of the Rock Garden or the complexity of Nek Chand's fantasy landscape.

These works do, however, convey the artist's extraordinary creativity and seriousness of purpose. Using unconventional materials, Nek Chand both pays homage to classical artistic conventions and imbues the ordinary with dignity. Made with his own hands, "without any assistance," at the beginning of his career, these delicate works reveal the Rock Garden's genesis as a spiritual refuge meant to heal the wounds of a world in conflict.'4 He writes, "These sculptures are very dear to me, and to appreciate them, one needs probing eyes and [a] meditating mind."5 Indeed, to stand before these quiet yet commanding works is to stand in sacred space.*

FEMALE FIGURE WEARING GHANGRA AND DUPATTA c. 1965-1970 Tinted concrete over metal armature with shells 30 x 6 x 6" 2001.13.1

FEMALE FIGURE WEARING GHANGRA AND DUPATTA c. 1965-1970 Tinted concrete over metal armature with shells 33 x 6 x 6" 2001.13.2

•• •

Editor's note: The five sculptures illustrated here were created by Nek Chand in Chandigarh, India. They are in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum, and were a gift of the artist with additional support from Charlotte Frank, Kathryn Morrison, Cheryl Rivers, and Steven Simons.

Cheryl Rivers holds a Ph.D.from Columbia University. She is also a graduate of thefolk art studies program at the America Folk Art Museum's Folk Art Institute, where she currently teaches. She is a contributor to American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (2001), and to the recently published Encyclopedia of American Folk Art (Routledge, 2003).

NOTES 1 Nek Chand,interview by author, Chandigarh, India, March 2001.

2 M.N. Sharma,"Nek Chand: An Early Encounter," Raw Vision 35(summer 2001): p. 28.

3 Bennett Schiff,"A Fantasy Garden by Nek Chand Flourishes in India," Smithsonian 17(June 1984): p. 128.

4 Susan L. Huntington, The Art ofAncient India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain(New York: Weatherill, 1985), p. 165.

5 For a discussion of the Karli mithunas, see Roy C. Craven,Indian Art: A Concise History(London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), pp. 56-60.

6 Eva Judy Jansen, The Book ofHindu Imagery: Gods, Manifestations, and Their Meanings, trans. Tony Langham (Diever, Netherlands, 1997), p. 15.

7 Ibid., p. 14.

8 For a discussion of the unmediated gaze, see Meyer Shapiro,"Frontal and Profile as Symbolic Forms," in Words, Script, and Pictures: Semiotics of Visual Language(New York: George Braziller, 1996), pp. 69-114.

9 Stephen P. Huyler, Meeting God: Elements ofHindu Devotion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 36.

10 Nek Chand, letter to author, August 25, 2001. I would like to thank Nek Chand for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions. I would also like to thank R.K. Bedi, Geetanjali Sharma, and Uma Sharma for facilitating our communication.

11 Ibid.

12 Nek Chand,letter to author, November 4,2001.

13 Nek Chand, letter to author, August 25,2001.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 67

By Michael R. Payne and Suzanne Rudnick Payne

'TED B AH S. AR RE In

LADY WITH HAIR COMB 1837 Signed on reverse Oil on canvas 263/4 241 / 2" Private collection Signed and dated on reverse

Women in Waiting in the Western Movement, a 1994 publication, historians Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith examine the lives of several women whose husbands and families participated in the westward migrations across the United States that occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century. They include a chapter about Abiah Stanley Warren (1805-1863). Among Warren's many vocations, Peavy and Smith note, she was a portrait painter who "regularly traveled through the countryside ... painting portraits of children and adultsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both living and deadâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and boarding with the families of her subjects." A selfportrait of Abiah Warren is also illustrated.'

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART GO

LADY WITH HAIR COMB (reverse side} Inscribed: No. 15.

Painted by Abiah S. Warren. Jaffrey, April 1837.

For many years, we had been well aware of Abiah Warren.

Signed on the back of a wonderful portrait, Lady with Hair Comb, are the words,"No. 15 painted by Abiah S. Warren, Jaffrey, April 1837."

None of the major references about American folk art, however, or the biographies of American artists mention her as a portrait painter.

The only other reference to Abiah Warren that we have been able to find is in a 1982 exhibition catalog of the arts of the Susquehanna Valley, from a show held in Binghamton, New York.2 But further research has led us to an unusually complete description of Abiah Warren's life and to several similarly signed paintings. Fortuitously, several of her diaries, as well as letters that Warren and her husband, William Hiller (1818-1884), wrote to each other, were deposited by a descendant in the Eastern Washington State Historical Society in Spokane.' These documents provide a great deal of information about her life, art training, and painting career.

Abiah Stanley Warren was born on May 11, 1805, to Oliver and Abiah Stanley Warren, in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Abiah was a.. superb student. Her precocious

70 WINTER 2003/2004 FOI,K ART

scholarship was such that her parents sent her to live with her uncle some twenty-five miles away, so that she could attend the Chesterfield Academy, in Chesterfield, considered at the time one of the finest schools in New Hampshire.

By her late teens, Abiah had accepted her first teaching position, then spent many years as a schoolmistress, teaching in the small schools near Jaffrey. Still, she continued her education throughout her twenties by attending Latin and Greek classes at the Chester Seminary, in Chester, Vermont.

Her diary additionally documents her particular fondness for astronomy.

During the spring and summer of 1836, when she was thirtyone years old, Warren returned to the Chester Seminary to learn to paint portraits. For the next several years, when not teaching, she traveled around southern New Hampshire painting portraits of local inhabitants. She completed portrait commissions in towns such as Marlboro, Keene, and Fitzwilliam, and usually boarded with her subjects. In her diary of 1836 to 1839, Warren commented that painting death portraits was a very unpleasant task. In one case, she

had to make several visits to the tomb of a woman who had been dead for six weeks.

Warren again taught school in Jaffrey during the winter of 1838-1839. One of her older students was William Hiller, who had previously served an apprenticeship with a local master carpenter. The life of this unmarried schoolmistress, who still lived with her parents, was greatly disrupted at this time. Her parents sold their Jaffrey home and purchased a two-hundred-acre farm in the rural village of McDonough, New York.

McDonough was a small farming community located in Chenango County near Binghamton in central New York State. The farm held great promise, as the nearby Chenango Canal had recently been completed in 1837. The Chenango Canal brought prosperity to the areas along its path because it connected to the Erie Canal and allowed the transportation of agricultural products, manufactured goods, and people to the major commercial centers of the state.'

Surprisingly, Warren defiantly decided not to accompany her parents to McDonough, but instead took a one-year teaching appointment in New York City. After a

year, however, she moved to McDonough and opened her own school,in one of the rooms of her parent's home.

Warren's father, Oliver, died in 1842. One month later, at age thirty-seven, she married the much younger, twenty-three-year-old Williams Hiller. Their first daughter, Phebe, was born ten months later.' The farm left by her father had become unprofitable, and a second child, Josephine, arrived in 1845, as their financial situation worsened. As a result, William became increasingly enticed by stories of better opportunities in the West. In 1847, he left the family and traveled alone to Illinois, where he found employment near Chicago. He returned home six months later, in April 1848, having achieved little financial success. Yet he also returned home full of enthusiasm to move to Richmond, Virginia.

Within two months, William again left his family, departing for Richmond. The decision was made that the family would join him, so Abiah rented out the McDonough home and moved the family to Virginia. Initially, William did well, starting a lumber-planing mill, but by the time Abiah arrived with the

family, in September 1848, news of the California gold rush was on everyone's mind. Reading newspaper accounts of the vast fortunes being made, William quickly succumbed to gold rush fever and _decided to try his luck in California. On March 13, 1849, he sold his share of the lumber mill for $300, and immediately used the money to purchase a share in an emigration cooperative society that was formed to purchase a ship and get its members to California. Abiah was left to get the family back to McDonough on her own, while William departed for a seventhousand-mile sea voyage around Cape Horn to San Francisco.

During May 1849, Abiah reclaimed her home and reopened her school. William finally arrived in San Francisco after a six and a half-month-long voyage, and soon departed for the mining towns near Stockton, California. His success as a miner, however, was limited.

William wrote to Abiah that it had now been eleven months since he had last heard from her, and that he was going to try his luck 250 miles farther north. William found himself at Union Town, California, which was being built next to the famous Trinity mines.6 At this time,

William had a very lucky break. He arrived just as the town's construction had begun, and he quickly received several large carpentry contracts. Fifty-nine days of labor earned him the then extraordinary sum of more than $600. For most of the thousands of men who went to California during the gold rush, a fortune in gold was an illusion. But for some men, like William Hiller, profit in the mining towns came from falling back on the skills they had brought with them.

Back in McDonough, 1850 and 1851 were particularly difficult years for Warren. A neighbor filled in a pond, flooding her home's basement with eighteen inches of water. She and her older daughter, Phebe, produced 136 pounds of butter from their one cow and sold fifty-four dozen eggs at 10 cents a dozen. Warren enrolled twenty students in her school, but earned a total of only $25 from tuition during the fall of 1850. To support her family, she rented out rooms to two women and purchased a daguerreotype apparatus as another source of income. In her letters to William, Abiah repeatedly asked him to send money home. His one response was to send two gold nuggetsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;worth $1.50

1WIN;TER 200.1ndar isrft,

eachâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for Abiah and her mother, and gold dollar coins for his two daughters.

On April 10, 1851, Abiah wrote to William that their home had burned down. Determined to continue, she had the house rebuilt for $300, and, in late June 1851, had a handbill printed announcing that her school would soon reopen. Tuition was $1.50 to $3 for a twelve-week semester, with available instruction in drawing, painting with watercolor, and theorem painting. In August 1851, Abiah wrote to William that the new house would soon be ready, but that she had not heard from him for eight months. The fall semester of the school in her new house brought a substantial $45 profit.

William's carpentry business, meanwhile, had been quite successful. He decided that it was time to return home, and, on October 25, 1852, he left Union Town as a relatively wealthy man, with the large sum of $3,865. Unlike his long westward voyage, this time William took the faster land route across the Isthmus of Panama. Taking this route, by horseback and mule, was possible because he was carrying little more than bags of money, as opposed to the heavy supplies he took with him aboard the westward-bound ship.

Although this trip took him only onethird of the time that the westward voyage did, it appears that he did not escape contracting the malaria that

72 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

made the Panama crossing an unacceptable choice for most travelers.

Finally, after an absence of almost four years, William arrived home in McDonough on Christmas morning of 1852. The $3,865 that William had brought home from California was enough wealth so that the major part of the family income from then on could be derived from real estate mortgages. Abiah nevertheless continued to run her school in their home. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, daughter Josephine, at age fifteen, joined Abiah in running the school. On November 16, 1863, Abiah Warren, at the age of fiftyeight, died quickly from diphtheria.

Three and a half years later, William Hiller married Abigail Roe. Daughter Josephine married Charles Dunning, and in 1880, with her own family of four children, migrated across the United States to settle in Walla Walla County, which was then Washington Territory. It was through these descendants that the family papers were deposited in the Eastern Washington State Historical Society.

Daughter Phebe remained unmarried and continued to live with her father and stepmother. After seventeen years of the second marriage, William Hiller died at age sixty-six in August 1884. In the late 1890s, Phebe had the family gravesite at the Union Cemetery in McDonough greatly embellished. On a sixteen-square-foot elevated site, a seven-foot-tall stone

obelisk, bearing a carved urn and drapery, impressively commemorates the family. The four sides of the monument are engraved with the names and details of family members, including "ABIAH S. / WIFE OF / WILLIAM HILLER / DIED / NOV. 16, 1863/ Aged 58 yrs /6 mons & 5 days."7 â&#x20AC;˘

Abiah Warren's portraits present the sitter in a straightforward pose, either facing the viewer directly or turned just slightly off center. The face is presented simply, with strong lines defining the facial features. There is little attempt at much threedimensional modeling. Particularly strong lines define the distinctly almond-shaped eyes. Thin, rounded eyebrows fuse with the strong outline forming the nose. In her portraits of women, a long, thin neck fuses with almost horizontal, flared-out shoulders, which often approach the edge of the canvas. There may be some fine brushwork in the costume, but for the most part her portraits are composed of broad areas of color.

Backgrounds also lack detail and are monochromatic. If hands are shown, they hold personal objects such as a book, watch, or musical instrument.

Abiah Warren had a strong tendency to record on the back of her canvases her name as the artist, date, and the place where the painting was done. She also numbered the can-

FITZWILLIAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE, GENTRY 1836 Signed on reverse Oil on canvas 27 25" Private collection This pair of portraits, of a woman holding a book and a man holding a watch, are signed on the reverse "Abiah S. Warren October 1836," and marked No. lion the man's portrait and No. 12 on the woman's. When these portraits were advertised by Child's Gallery, Boston, in Maine Antique Digest, October 1980, on page 6B, it was stated that they were dated 1856. Subsequently, the owners have removed the lining canvas and relined the portraits with clear material so that the inscriptions on the back are now visible, revealing the date as 1836.

Gravestone in Union Cemetery, McDonough, New York. Engraved: "ABIAH S./ WIFE OF/ WILLIAM HILLER/DIED/NOV. 16, 1863/Aged 58 yrs/6 mons & 5 days"

MAN WITH FLUTE AND WOMAN WITH BOOK n.d.

Oil on canvas 26 21" Collection unknown Photo courtesy StephenDouglas Antiques, Rockingham, Vermont This pair of portraits is attributed to Abiah Warren. No inscriptions are visible. They were sold at Skinners, Bolton, Mass., on March 1989, as lot 323. These paintings appear to have been executed at about the same time as the Fitrwilliam, New Hampshire, Gentry paintings. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

vases. We have found portraits from 1836, the year she was taught to paint at the Chester Seminary. These portraits were painted in various towns of southern New Hampshire. In that first year as a painter, she completed canvases that were numbered 11 and 12. The next year, canvas No. 15 had been accomplished. She continued to paint portraits after she joined her parents in McDonough, New York.

While the last painting we have found is dated 1840, it would not be surprising if additional later paintings come to light. Warren's portraits would have continued to provide her with a needed income in the years when her husband was not at home. As she advertised in her 1851 handbill, she offered instruction in drawing, painting with watercolors, and theorem painting. In the small village of McDonough, she would have been one of the few people capable of painting an oil-on-canvas portrait.

Today, we view Warren's paintings as straightforward, simple representations in the best American folk art tradition.

•••

Authors' note: Other known portraits, not illustrated:

Mr. Panniater and Mrs. Panniater A pair of portraits, oil on canvas, signed on the reverse of the woman's portrait: Miss E [?] Panniater Marl-

borough painted by Abiah S. Warren, Jaffrey [?date]. The man's portrait is inscribed, No.[?] painted by Abiah S. Warren, Jaffrey, June 1837. We have seen only photocopies of these paintings and of the inscriptions on their backs. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

Self-Portrait An oil on canvas, stated to have been done shortly before her marriage to William Hiller. Reproduced on page 47 in L. Peavy and U. Smith's Women in Waiting in the Westward Movement, see endnote No. 1. At the time of publication of this book, this painting was still in the possession of descendants. Its current whereabouts are unknown.

Rhoda Brisce An oil on canvas, size 26 by 29 inches, inscribed on the back "Rhoda Brisce, born June 27, 1818, painted

by Abiah S. Warren, Sept. 1840, at McDonough, NY," illustrated in Richard Barons' The Folk Tradition: Early Arts and Crafts of the Susquehanna Valley, see endnote No. 2. Its current whereabouts are unknown.* Michael R. Payne and Suzanne Rudnick Payne are dedicated collectors and researchers ofAmericanfolk portraiture, and are members ofthe American Folk Art Society. Michael Payne earned his PhD. in biologyfrom Brandeis University, and Suzanne Rudnick Payne earned her Ph.D. in chemistryfrom Boston

University. They have restored the John Kelley House, c. 1790, located in upstate New York, which numerous museum and collector groups have toured. The authors would appreciate hearingfrom anyone who knows ofa painting that may be attributed to, or is signed by, Abiah Warren, and they can be reached care ofthe Editor at Folk Art magazine.

Notes 1 Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith, Women in Waiting in the Westward Movement (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), pp. 43-88.

2 Richard Barons, The Folk Tradition: Early Arts and Crafts ofthe Susquehanna Valley(Binghamton, N.Y.: Roberson Center, 1982),exhibition catalog, p. 15.

3 Charles Dunning papers, Eastern Washington State Historical Society, Spokane, Wash. These papers where donated by a great-granddaughter of Abiah and William Hiller. The details of Abiah's life are based on this source and on the summary of these documents presented in reference No. 1.

4 Michele McFee,A Long Haul: The Story ofthe New York State Barge Canal (New York: Purple Mountain Press, 1998).

5 We have used Abiah's spelling of her daughter's name as Phebe,instead of the more common Phoebe, as written in the letters between Abiah and William, and as indicated on Phebe's own grave.

6 Union Town no longer exists, but was once on Humboldt Bay near the present town of Arcata, Calif. It should not be confused with the current Union Town, located near San Francisco.

7 Union Cemetery, McDonough, N.Y., was visited by the authors in June 2003.

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 73

GIVE. . THE .H.GIFT OF MEMBERSHIP Purchase a gift membership and mention this ad to receive $10 off any membership. Contact the membership office via telephone at 212. 977. 7170, ext. 306, visit our website www.folkartmuseum.org, or e-mail membership@folkartmuseum.org.

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AMERICAN

> TIN MAN / c.1930 / David Goldsmith (1901-1980)/ Long Island City, Queens, New York / paint on galvanized sheet metal /72 x 25 x 11" / American Folk Art Museum, promised gift of Ralph Esmerian, P1.2001.355

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SAVE THE DATE AMERICA' FOLK ART MUSEUM'S

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of New Orleans IN CELEBRATION OF THE MUSEUM'S FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION ABOUT LEGENDARY NEW ORLEANS ARTIST SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN

THURSDAY,JUNE 3, 2004 For information, please call 212. 977. 7170, ext. 318.

CHARITY HOSPITAL 523-2311 / Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980)/ New Orleans, Louisiana! n.d. / acrylic and/or tempera, graphite, and ballpoint ink on cardboard with string / 13 1/2 x 17"!collection of Alvina and Paul Haverkamp

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INTRODUCING

Adapted from "Medallion" by Loretta Pettway (1960). Hand-tufted New Zealand wool. Made in the US

Exquisite rugs faithfully adapted from the quilts designed

by the women of Gee's Bend, AL —featured at the Whitney Museum—

By exclusive agreement with Tinwood Alliance. A portion of the purchase price goes to the community of Gee's Bend.

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uncommon artists XII symposium saturday january 24 speakers will include roger cardinal presented by the american folk art museum preview and symposium information: 212.977.7170

sanford I. smith & associates 212.777.5218 fax: 212.477.6490 info@sanfordsmith.com www.sanfordsmith.com

joseph barlock, courtesy ricco/maresca gallery josef karl radler, courtesy galerie st.etienne

MUSEUM

REPRODUCTIONS

PROGRAM

ALICE J. HOFFMAN

FOLK ART

Representing more than 300 years ofAmerican design,from the late 1600s to the present, the American Folk Art Museum CollectionTm brings within reach ofthe public the very best ofthe past to be enjoyedfor generations to come.

COLLECTION

New Directions

* Chronicle Books Wedded Bliss! The gift division of Chronicle Books,one of the most admired and respected publishing companies in the United States, is a new Museum licensee. The Museum and Chronicle are wedded in creating a collection of note cards featuring quilts from the Museum's extensive textile collection. This project, inspired by the Double Wedding Ring quilt pattern and other images long associated with love, will include 20 cards(four each of five designs) and 20 envelopes, inside a heavy,folded wallet with Velcro closure. This set of cards is the perfect gift for saying "thank you" to guests at a wedding shower, for the wedding party itself, or to enclose with a wedding gift. Or use them yourself, individually, as notes and gift enclosures for any heartfelt occasion. Cards will be available in the Museum's Book and Gift Shop next fall. * Henredon Tradition and Innovation! Henredon, an internationally renowned furniture manufacturer with headquarters in Morganton, N.C., is the Museum's newest licensee.

Henredon specializes in finely crafted wood and upholstered furniture. Inspired by the Museum's collections as well as classic design principles, Henredon's furniture line will include multipurpose pieces that can be used throughout the home and office.

Look for details about this collec-

82 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

DOUBLE WEDDING RING QUILT QuiRmaker unidentified Possibly Georgia 1930-1940 Cotton 1 4" 86 73/ American Folk Art Museum, gift of Robert Bishop, 1993.4.19

tion, and when and where it will be available, in the next issue of Folk Art. Until then, everything is under wraps, literally.

Newsfrom Museum Licensees Share our legacy; look for new products from our family of licensees, featuring unique designs inspired by objects from the Museum's collection. * MANI-G'Reps All Wrapped Up in Love! MANI-G'Raps also chose love as the inspiration for its first collection of gift wrap and coordinating products for the Museum. Based on the Museum's Heart-and-Hand Love Token, a cut-paper assemblage of hands with hearts interwoven on each palm, MANI-G'Raps created a collection perfect for any occasion. Although Valentine's Day is generally considered the first annual occasion on which greetings in the form of tokens and keepsakes were exchanged, love tokens, like the one in the Museum's collection, were given as gestures of regard throughout the year. The familiar sentiment, "Hand and heart shall never part!

When this you see / Remember me," found on the Museum's love token and adapted by MANIG'Raps,reminds us all that friendship and love are things to celebrate at any time. Products will be available in the Museum's Book and Gift Shop next year. Or for a store near you, contact MANI-G'Raps.

HEART-AND-HAND LOVE TOKEN Artist unidentified Possibly Connecticut 1840-1860 Ink and varnish on cut paper 12 z 14" American Folk Art Museum, purchase, 1981.12.15

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Your purchase of Museumlicensed products directly benefits the exhibition and educational activities of the Museum. Thank you for participating in the Museum's continuing efforts to celebrate the style, craft, and tradition of American folk art. If you have any questions or comments regarding the American Folk Art Museum CollectionTM, please contact us at 212/977-7170.

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American Fish Decoys This major new book presents over one hundred of the most important American fish decoys, including many from the firstever major museum show of the art form held at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. Written by Steven Michaan, the co-author of"Beneath the Ice, The Art of the Fish Decoy," this oversize, 10 x 12", 208 page book is available in hardcover hardcover or slip-cased leatherbound deluxe editions.

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PRIVATE EVENTS AT THE AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM Corporate members, Folk Art Circle Patrons and not-for-profit organizations have the unique opportunity to host private events in the Museum's stunning building in midtown Manhattan.

Cocktail receptions up to 350 guests Seated dinners up to 120 guests Auditorium with state-of-theart AV system for meetings and conferences For more information or to arrange a site visit, please contact Katie Hush at 212. 977. 7170 or email khush@folkartmuseum.org AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM 45 West 53rd Street New York City Tel. 212. 977. 7170 www.folkartmuseum.org

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 85

BOOKS

OF

INTEREST

Kentucky Folk Art Center www.kyfolkart.org Kentucky Folk Art Center is a cultural,educational and ecomomic development service of Morehead State University

rom the 8-foot-tall metal rooster outside to the paintings of Charley Kinney - inside,the creative expressions of Kentucky's self-taught artists make the Kentucky Folk Art Center a unique and truly authentic reflection of the region's culture. Our 900-piece permanent collection includes the work of the state's finest folk artists. In addition, we bring at least four new exhibitions to Morehead each year.

ANNUAL EVENTS • 1st Weekend of June Bluegrass 'n More, A Celebration ofAppalachian Heritage,includes Appalachian Arts & Crafts Fair • 1st Saturday of June A Day in the Country Folk ArtShow & Auction • 1st Saturday of December Holiday Arts & Crafts Fair

he following recent titles are great gift-giving ideas. All titles are available at the American Folk Art Museum's Book and Gift Shop at 45 West 53rd Street, New York. To order, please call 212/265-1040. Museum members receive a 10 percent discount.

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American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum, Stacy C. Hollander, Brooke Davis Anderson, and Gerard C. Wertkin, American Folk Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001,432 pages, $65 American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, Stacy C. Hollander, American Folk Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams,Inc., 2001, 572 pages, $75 American Vernacular: New Discoveries in Folk, Self-taught, and Outsider Sculpture, Frank Maresca and Roger Ricco, Bulfinch Press, 2002, 304 pages, $75 The Art ofAdolf Wolfli: St. AdolfGiant-Creation, Daniel Baumann, Elka Spoerri, and Edward Gomez, American Folk Art Museum in association with Princeton University Press, 2003, 112 pages,$29.95 The Art ofthe Game: A Collection of Vintage Game Boards, Tim Chambers, Shaver and Chambers, 2001, 218 pages, $125

102W. First Street • Morehead, KY 40351 606.783.2204 KFAC is open: Monday - Saturday 9 am.- 5 p.m.

Sunday 1 - 5 p.m.

Admission: $3 Monday - Saturday • FREE Sunday

SS WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Art ofthe Needle: One Hundred Masterpiece Quiltsfrom the Shelburne Museum, Henry Joyce, Shelburne Museum,2003, 140 pages, $24.95

Baseballfor Everyone: Stories from the Great Game, Janet Wyman Coleman with Elizabeth V. Warren, American Folk Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams,Inc., 2003, 48 pages, $16.95 Collective Willetto: The Visionary Carvings ofa Navajo Artist, Shonto Begay and Lee Kogan, Museum of New Mexico Press, 2002, 115 pages, $29.95 Coverlets and the Spirit ofAmerica, Joseph Shein and Melinda Zongor, Schiffer Publishing, 2002,224 pages,$69.95 Critters A to Z, Barbara Lovenheim, ed., American Folk Art Museum in association with BLL Charitable Trust, 2003, 80 pages, $12.95 Darger: The Henry Darger Collection ofthe American Folk Art Museum, Brooke Davis Anderson, American Folk Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams,Inc., 128 pages, $29.95 Drawn Home:Fritz Vogt's Rural America, W.Parker Hayes Jr., Fenimore Art Museum,2002, 96 pages, $19.95 Folk Art Journey, Florence D. Bartlett and the Museum of International Folk Art, 112 pages, Museum of New Mexico Press, 2003,$27.50 Fraktur Writings and Folk Art Drawings ofthe Schwenkfelder Library Collection, Dennis K. Moyer,Pennsylvania German Society, 1997,302 pages, $69.95

Henry Darger:In the Realms of the Unreal, John MacGregor, Delano Greenidge Editions, 2001,680 pages, $85 The Highwaymen: Florida's AfricanAmerican Landscape Painters, Gary Monroe, University Press of Florida, 2001, 149 pages, $29.95 Home Sweet Home: The House in American Folk Art, Deborah Harding and Laura Fisher, Rizzoli, 2001, 160 pages,$50 Jonathan Lerman: Drawings by an Artist with Autism, Lyle Rexer, George Braziller, Inc., 2002, 127 pages, $22.95 The Kingdoms ofEdward Hicks, Carolyn J. Weekley, Harry N. Abrams,Inc., 1999, 254 pages, $39.95 Madness and Art: The Life and Works ofAdolf Wolfli, Walter Morgenthaler, M.D.,translated

by Aaron H. Esman, M.D., University of Nebraska Press, reprint 1992, 127 pages,$60 Painted Saws/Jacob Kass, Lee Kogan, American Folk Art Museum,2002,56 pages, $14.95 The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball, Elizabeth V. Warren, American Folk Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003, 150 pages, $29.95 Raw Vision Outsider Art Sourcebook, John Maizels, ed., Raw Vision magazine, 2002, $29.95

The Schlumpers: Art Without Borders, Giinther Gercken and Christoph EissingChristopherson, eds., Springer Wien New York, 2001,219 pages,$44 Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending, Ray and Melanie Materson, Algonquin Books,2002, 212 pages, $20.95 Spiritually Moving: A Collection ofAmerican Folk Art Sculpture, Tom Geismar and Harvey Kahn, Harry N. Abrams,Inc., 1998, 176 pages, hardcover. Autographed by Harvey Kahn.

Limited quantity available, $2-50 $175 Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Columbus Museum of Art in Association with Harry N. Abrams,Inc., 2002,200 pages, $45 Timeless Beauty: Traditional Japanese Artfrom the Montgomery Collection, various essayists, Sidra, 2002,377 pages, $75 Uncommon Legacies: NativeAmerican Artfrom the Peabody Essex Museum, John R. Grimes, Christian F. Feest, and Mary Lou Curran, American Federation of Arts in association with University of Washington Press, 2002, 272 pages,$60 Wonders to Behold: The Visionary Art ofMyrtice West, Carol Crown, Mustang Publishing, 1999, 143 pages,$55

Crit American Folk Art Mu

Critters A to Z BARBARA LOVENHEIM, EDITOR AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM IN ASSOCIATION WITH BIL CHARITABLE TRUST; HARDCOVER,80 PAGES; 62 FULL-COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS; $12.95 CRITTERS A TO Z is a very unusual

alphabet book! Written for children ages 5 years and up, it showcases a delightful collection of the earth's creatures as only folk artists could have interpreted them. With its engaging and interactive text, you'll learn about the armadillo and the zebra and everything in betweenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as well as the artists who made them.

CRITTERS A TO Z is available from the

Work Life, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, The Monacelli Press, 270 pages,$60

American Folk Art Museum's Book and Gift Shop at 45 West 53rd Street.

Museum members receive a 10 percent discount. For mail orders, please call 212. 265. 1040, ext. 124.

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MUSEUM

NEWS

Kids line up for Tom Glavine to sign baseballs

Baseball Family Day

An Evening with the Babe portswriter and television, radio, and film personality Bert Sugar graciously hosted An Evening with Babe Ruth, on Tuesday, July 22, at the museum's Eva and Morris Feld Gallery at Two Lincoln Square.

This program, organized by Feld Gallery director Dale Gregory to coincide with the museum's presentation of"The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball," on view at the museum on West 53rd Street, is one in a series of neighborhood history programs sponsored by The Athena Group LLC and 45 West 64th Street Condominium Residences.

Tony Morante, tour director for the New York Yankees as well as a Yankee "folk" historian, briefly discussed Babe Ruth's relation to the Yankees and Yankee Stadium, and introduced Max Frazee, greatgrandson of Harry Frazee, the former Red Sox owner who infamously sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Frazee recounted the family nightmare that ensued after the sale, often referred to as "The Curse of the Bambino."

Since that sale in 1919, not a single World Series has been captured by the Red Sox. Popular culture focuses the blame on Harry Frazee's unfortunate move. Robert Creamer, the definitive Babe Ruth biographer,

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Bert Sugar, Max Frazee, and Tony Morante

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author of Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, presented a collage of vignettes revealing sharp contrasts in Ruth's personality, from "innocent, playful child" to "hurtful wild man." A series of photographs of Babe Ruth were displayed during the evening, courtesy the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

An Evening with Babe Ruth attracted more than 130 visitors to the gallery. Wine was served, courtesy of 67 Wine and Spirits, accompanied by a beautiful array of cheese, fruit, and pâté, served by Maya Schaper of Maya Schaper Cheese and Antiques. Museum docent and ABC Eyewitness News producer Candy Martinez donated and arranged sunflowers and lilies to decorate the gallery. Volunteers from the Yogi Berra Museum, Yankee Stadium's volunteer corps, and the Non-Profit Coordinating Committee of New York City greeted the guests.

Joe Valentino, a former 20th Precinct community affairs officer, helped to manage the event. The museum wishes to thank city council member Gale Brewer, who helped secure the funds to make this program possible, and all those who participated, including Kenneth Bing, Bienvenido Medina, and Daniel Rodriguez.

he American Folk Art Museum hosted a superspecial Family Day on Thursday, July 10. It was a funfilled, full day, celebrating America's favorite pastime as well as the museum's current exhibition, "The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball." More than 500 visitors participated in exhibition tours, children's games— such as "Pin the Ball in the Pitcher's Mitt" and "I Spy Gallery Hunt"—and many artmaking activities. New York Mets pitchers Tom Glavine and Al Leiter participated in the day, along with the team's mascot, Mr. Met. They were kept busy— signing autographs, having their photographs taken, and chatting with museum visitors, big and small. Glavine and Leiter were accompanied by their wives, Christine and Lori, and their children. Guest curator Elizabeth V. Warren and her associate Margaret S. Smeal led continual tours of the three-floor exhibition throughout the day.

Visitors included a number of children's camp groups from around the city. Everyone munched on free popcorn, distributed by museum staff and volunteer "vendors," and explored the artwork in the exhibition. The kids were ecstatic at the chance to meet official star players from the New York Mets. The general consensus among the campers was that My Favorite Baseball Star's Quilt, made by Clara Schmitt Rothmeier, was the "coolest." All students participated in a giveaway at the end of the day that included T-shirts and exhibition catalogs as well as free .

F tickets to New York Mets and 6 Brooklyn Cyclones games—generously donated by each team's

organization. "Family Day was a wonderful affirmation of the museum's mission," says Director Gerard C. Wertkin. "It was rewarding to see so many children coming to an understanding of the relevance of the museum experience to their own lives."

The exhibition "The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball" and Family Day were made possible in part by a generous grant from the New York Mets.

Additional support for Family Day was provided by Hebrew National.

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jg AA Kids from Camp Carmine (one very camera shy) listen to old-timey baseball songs at the audio station in the museum's atrium An exuberant Mets fan looks on as Al Leiter signs her LEITER baseball shirt

America's #1 Auction House for Buying and Selling Self-Taught Art & Southern Folk Pottery

Slotin Folk Art Auction May 2004 • Buford, GA • 800 Lots

Important African-American Slave-Made Pottery & Face Jugs Extensive Collection of Cheever & Arie Meaders' Face Jugs re Lanier Meaders' Face Jugs Shuford Hilton Face Pitcher Brown's Pottery Advertisement Devil Face Jug, c. 1930's Face Jugs by Harvey Reinhar# Large collection of early works by Billy Ray Hussey Incredible collection of B.B. Craig pottery, including 8 gallon jugs and large wig stands

Also included in this world-class-collection: Martin Ramirez Bill Traylor Henry Darger - Largest work in existence Howard Finster Joseph Yoakum Clementine Hunter on window shade Jon Serl Frank Jones Sam Doyle And an impressive list of other major works...

Catalog: $25 Slotin Folk Art Auction • 5967 Blackberry Ln. Buford, GA 30518 (GAL #2864) 770 932-1000 • 770 932-0506 fax • email: folkfest@bellsouth.net • www.slotinfolkart.com

MUSEUM

NEWS

Encyclopedic Palace

Spring Benefit 2004 he American Folk Art Museum is happy to announce the date for its Second Annual Spring Benefit.

Inspired by the exhibition "Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan," the theme of this year's benefit will be Sights and Sounds of New Orleans. The benefit takes place on Thursday, June 3, and will honor Joyce and George Wein, in recognition of their diverse contributions to jazz and world culture. The legendary producer of major jazz festivals around the world, George Wein was the longtime producer of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, at which Sister Gertrude

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Morgan was a popular fixture.

Joyce and George Wein's shared commitment to supporting artists of color has extended from the music world to the art world through their impressive collection of work by African-American visual artists, including that of Sister Gertrude Morgan. The spring benefit is a major fundraiser for the museum,and the proceeds provide critical operating support for our exhibition and education programs. The plans for this year's benefit include live New Orleansjazz and a silent auction of musical instruments embellished by contemporary folk artists expressly for this event.

David and Serena Bechtel, and Rebecca and Michael Gamzon

his past January, the museum acquired an exciting work by a previously undocumented artist. The Encyclopedic Palace, by selftaught artist Marino Auriti, is a scale model of a museum conceived to house "all the works of man in whatever field, discoveries made,and those which may follow." The model, built in the 1950s and standing 12 feet high, enters the collection through a generous gift from Colette McDonald and Mary Firmani, Auriti's granddaughters, who had been searching for a permanent home for the piece for many years.

Auriti was a mechanic in Pennsylvania who had studied carriage making in Italy before fleeing the Fascist regime in the 1930s. The model is accompanied by Auriti's heavily detailed

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Marino Auriti and the Encyclopedic Palace, C. mid-1950s

Americus Group of Young Collectors he museum's young collectors started the season on Sept. 19 with a reception and curator's tour of"The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball." The Americus Group brings together folk art enthusiasts under the age of 40 for exclusive educational and social events.

In the past, these events have included private tours of The American Antiques Show and the

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90 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Outsider Art Fair, visits to the homes of prominent collectors of folk art, lectures by dealers and scholars, social gatherings, and special receptions following museum events. If you are interested in joining the Americus Group, please contact Katie Hush, special events manager, at 212/977-7170,ext. 308, or at khush@folkartmuseum.org.

eight-page "Statement of Purpose," original government patent papers, and other interesting contextual material, as well as the pyramid-shaped glass-and-metal tower that Auriti made to protect the model when it was displayed in public.

The Encyclopedic Palace spent the past 20 years disassembled in a commercial storage facility in Delaware, and it requires a great deal of conservation. To this end, the museum recently received a matching grant from the Lower Hudson Conference of Historical Agencies and Museums(LHC),as well as contributions from a coalition of individual donors who learned of the project through Ms. Firmani. In order to complete funding for the restoration, a total of $10,000 remains to be raised.

\ational 3Iack Fine Art Show

The only art show of its kind, bringing together the finest work produced in the last hundred years!

Thursday, January 29 - Sunday, February 1, 2004 Charity Preview, Wednesday, January 28, 2004 A Benefit for the New York Urban League, call 212-926-8000, ext. 24

The Puck Building 295 Lafayette St. at Houston St., SoHo, New York City

Original Art All For Sale • Paintings • Sculpture • Photography • Mixed Media • Outsider Art • Tribal Art • Textiles • Limited Edition Prints

Sponsors: Fex Hgrinessy•

0000

Express

zip,

ijork

ESSENCE ElinlitrzusE LEGACY

For more information go to www.blackfineartshow.com, or call 301-263-0783.

Art work courtesy top left clockwise: Dolan/Maxwell, Merton D. Simpson Gallery, Martha Henry Inc. Fine Art, Sragow Gallery, Dell Pryor Gallery and M.Hanks Gallery.

MUSEUM

NEWS

CultureFest 2003 or the second successful year in a row, the American Folk Art Museum participated in CultureFest, a two-day event held, this time, in Battery Park. CultureFest 2003 was organized by NYC & Company, and was presented by Merrill Lynch & Co. Foundation, Inc., on Sept. 20 and 21. Ninetynine arts and cultural institutions came together in the Lower Manhattan park to introduce themselves to New York's visitors, and to distribute programming and promotional literature.

NYC & Company provided each participating institution with a free 10-by-10-foot tent,

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equipped with three tables and folding chairs. The institutions, which included museums, theaters, botanical gardens, and zoos, were asked to decorate their booths to attract the public's attention. Staff and volunteers decorated the American Folk Art Museum's booth with colorful baseball pennants to celebrate its current exhibition,"The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball," and ran an all-day pennantmaking workshop for children.

The children colored the pennants, cut them out, punched holes, and threaded the pennants onto brightly colored yarn so that they could wear them around

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their necks. More than 200 children joined in on the fun.

The weekend was a huge success, thanks to all who generously participated.

CultureFest in Battery Park, September 2003

CELEBRATING ANTIQUES WEEK IN NEW YORK

ANTIQUES at the

TAKE A WALK ON THE WEST SIDE OF MANHATTAN FOR ANTIQUES WEEK • 600 DEALERS!

ARMORY

ANTIQUES

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@ THE PIERS

RIMY & SATURDAY 11-8• SUNDAY 11-5

THE ARMORY ON LEXINGTON AVENUE CO 26TH STREET,NYC 100 EXHIBITORS SELLING EXCEPTIONAL & EXTRAORDINARY AMERICAN & EUROPEAN ANTIQUES,PERIOD FURNITURE, AMERICANA, FOLK ART, ARCHITECTURAL ARTIFACTS, TEXTILES, FINE ART & CERAMICS.

Over 600 Antiques Dealers Selling

FORMAL, AMERICAN & MODERN Furniture, Ar, , Folk Art, Jewelry & Objects

JANUARY 17-18 PASSENGER SHIP TERMINAL

PIERS 88, 90 & 92 12th Avenue @ 48th to 55th Streets, NYC Saturday & Sunday 10-5 • Admission $12

SHOW ADMISSION $12

Complimentary Shuttle to & from TAAS. The Winter Antiques Show and Antiques @ The Piers

Complimentary Shuttle to Midtown, The Winter Antiques Show & Antiques at the Armory

STELLA SHOW MGMT. CO. 212-255-0020- www.stellashows.com

92 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Robert Cargo FOLK ART GALLERY Self-taught, visionary, and outsider artists of the South African-American quilts â&#x20AC;˘ Haitian spirit flags

Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary with a move to Main Line Philadelphia Since 1984, we have offered the finest in Southern folk art through our gallery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. As we begin our twentieth year, we are pleased to announce that our daughter, Caroline Cargo, will become our new director. Although we are closing the original Alabama gallery, our extensive inventory will continue to be available through our website and in our new Main Line Philadelphia location.

Collectors traveling in the Philadelphia area are welcome to schedule appointments in our residential gallery in Paoli,just over half an hour from the city. We invite you to visit us online for more information.

Caroline Cargo, Director 110 Darby Road â&#x20AC;˘ Paoli, PA 19301 Hours by appointment Phone 610-240-9528

www.cargofolkart.com info@cargofolkart.com

Museum member Seymour Finkelstein and Herta Gordon with mask by artist Leo Hogan

American Self-Taught Art An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,219 Capsule Biographies

Long Island in June ong Island is at its prettiest in June. This summer,the American Folk Art Museum Explorers took three days to visit artists and folk art collections on New York's scenic Long Island.

Day one—Wednesday,June 25— started with a visit to the town of Cedarhurst and award-winning quiltmaker Margot Cohen. More than 300 of Cohen's quilts were displayed throughout her home for visitors to discuss and admire. Continuing along the South Shore to Eastport, the group enjoyed a leisurely lunch at Trumpets on the Bay,a charming restaurant located on Seatuck Cove of Moriches Bay. Tour members then met with decoy carver Jamie Reason at his Seatuck Gallery, where he gladly demonstrated his traditional craft. Late in the afternoon, the group arrived at the Southampton Inn, making it home base for the next two nights.

The rest of the day was spent in Watermill at the lovely home of museum members Angela and Leon Weiss, collectors of trade signs, carousel animals, and antique toys.

Leon is co-owner, with his twin brother, Steven, of Gemini Antiques, a well-known Bridgehampton shop, which the group planned to visit on Thursday. It was a long first day, and the group ended it with a relaxing and beautiful drive along the beach, before settling in for the night.

The next morning,the Explorers traveled to Amagansett to see museum member George Whitney's whimsical collection of woodcarvings, wedding-cake tops, and amazing eclectic memorabilia; then came a visit to the historic home of member Joan Carlson in Sag Harbor. She collects wood cutouts and garden ornaments. After lunch in Sag Harbor, the next stop was at the famous gardens of artist Robert Dash, at the

L Florence Lailel andJuilus LOW

American Self-Taught Art An Illustrated Analysis of20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal Foreword by Tom Patterson 368 pages $45 hardcover 125 photos (45 in color), tables, chronology, bibliography, index ISBN 0-7864-1669-6 2003

SELF TAUGHT, OUTSIDER,and FOLK ART

Outsider, SelfTaught, and Folk Art Annotated Bibliography

A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources

by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johanson Outsider, Self Taught, Self Taught,Outsider, and Folk Art Annotated and Folk Art A Guide to American Artists, Bibliography Both

Locations and Resources 334 pages $49.93 softcover Selected readings list, index ISBN 0-7864-0745-X 2000

Publications and Films ofthe 20th Century 348 pages $59.95 softcover Index ISBN 0-7864-1056-6 2002

McFarland Box 611 • Jefferson NC 28640 Orders 800-253-2187• FAX 336-246-4403 www.mcfarlandpub.com

94 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

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Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack.

Dash personally led a tour of the gardens and talked about his passion for plants. The rest of the afternoon was spent browsing through the local antiques shops of neighboring Bridgehampton,including Gemini Antiques, and ended with a delicious dinner at the Plaza Restaurant, back in Southampton.

Friday's itinerary included a visit to quiltmaker Esterita Austin at her home and studio, where she gave a fascinating quilting demonstration.

The group then spent some time with artist Leo Hogan,an extraordinary mask maker. Lunch was enjoyed at Old Westbury Gardens, followed by guided tours of that historic house and grounds. Next was a stop at the home of members Irene and Richard Gachot to see their wonderful collection of traditional folk art. Richard, an artist himself, talked about their collection and about his own work. The last stop on the tour was at the home of members Meryl and Joe Viener, who guided the troop through their fabulous collection of contemporary folk art. On behalf of the museum, Suzannah Kellner and Lauren Potters of the membership department would like to thank all the participants, especially the member hosts, for an exciting, folk art-filled few days on Long Island.

Jean Lipman Fellows major objective of the American Folk Art Museum is the continued development of its exceptional collection, which draws from the diverse traditions represented by the field of American folk art. With this in mind, the museum formed the Jean Lipman Fellows in 1996 in honor of Jean Lipman, a renowned scholar and collector as well as an early trustee of the museum. The Jean Lipman Fellows is a select group of museum donors who contribute funds for the acquisition—under the guidance of the museum's curators and Collections Committee—of artworks

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that enhance the museum's permanent collection.

In November,the Fellows gathered for a reception and curatorial tour of the exhibition "Recent Gifts to the American Folk Art Museum: A Collection Sampler." This show features recent gifts to the museum's permanent collection, including two portraits purchased in 1999 with funds donated by the Jean Lipman Fellows. For information about becoming a Jean Lipman Fellow, please contact Radhika Natarajan, development associate, at 212/977-7170, ext. 318, or rnatarajan@folkartmuseum.org.

I Ga(erie Bonheur

Justin McCarthy, Pennsylvania, "Irish Setters" watercolor, pen and ink on paper

Laurie Carmody, specializing in International Folk, Outsider and Self-Taught Art since 1980

www.galeriebonheur.com WOMAN HOLDING RED BOOK and MAN HOLDING QUILL / Erastus Salisbury Field 11805-1900)/ New England / c. 1835-1838 / oil on canvas/30 x 26 each / American Folk Art Museum, 1999 museum purchase with funds from the Jean Lipman Fellows, 1999.5.1, 2

Sports Night n exceptionally lively panel discussion, Treasured Memories: Sportswriters Talk About Baseball, hosted by the museum's education department, was held on Sept. 16. The speakers included Roger Angell of The New Yorker, Claire Smith of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, and Steve Wulf of ESPN Magazine. The auditorium was filled to capacity and often almost burst with hearty laughter, as the speakers related anecdote

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after anecdote from their vast experiences with the legends of baseball. The diverse audience included both baseball fans and art lovers, male and female, young and not so young. These were people who came together to share their love for the game, and right up front were Millie and Bill Gladstone—baseball team owners, noted baseball collectors, and generous lenders to the museum's current exhibition, "The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball."

By Appointment:(314) 993-9851

By Fax:(314) 993-9260 10046 Conway Road, St. Louis, MO 63124

By Email: gbonheur@aol.com Representing Artists From: Africa • Bahamas• Brazil • Canada Costa Rica • Cuba • Dominican Republic Ecuador • England • Guatemala Haiti • Hungary • Indonesia • Jamaica Mexico • Nicaragua • Panama Peru • Poland • Romania • Russia Trinidad • USA • Venezuela

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MUSEUM

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Susan Starr of Hartsdale Fabrics, distributor of Brother International sewing machines, shows 10-year-olds Iga Cuglewska (left) and Olivia Pitula how the new machine works.

Talking Quilts, a New Exhibition, Opens in February n 1848, Maria Cadman Hubwhich a woman held few legal bard imparted the following rights, her name appeared promiadvice: "If you cannot be a nently and persistently within the golden pippin, don't turn crab sphere over which she presided. apple." More than 150 years Quilts and other textiles prolater, these words continue to vided a socially acceptable outlet inspire a smile, as they were not for women to express individual spoken and quickly forgotten, but creativity and personal beliefs. lovingly appliquéd onto a quilt Women used these forms to made in Hubbard's 79th year, for record their creative impulses and a now-unknown recipient. The social responses. Their words Pieties Quilt, so-called because spoke of political and religious of the religious homilies, affiliations, social movements, proverbs, and other sentiments it support for one another within a contains, is only one of approxicommunity, or the championing mately 20 quilts that will be on of national causes. Their words view at the American Folk Art showed up on signature quilts, Museum, beginning in February. temperance quilts, war quilts, "Talking Quilts" explores the and memorial quilts—to name thoughts and experiences of just a few. women in the United States over Today,quiltmakers such as two centuries, through the words Jessie Telfair, whose Freedom they have chosen to apply to their Quilt repeats only one word, needlework. "freedom," boldly across its Since colonial times, the expanse, still see quilts as a visipreparation of textiles has been ble and viable outlet for the engaged in or supervised primarexpression of beliefs. "Talking ily by women. The earliest guidQuilts," a beautiful and powerful ance for this role occurred at ,exhibition, will be installed on home and in school settings, the museum's second floor. wherein the "marking" of textiles was a basic skill Little amIS of ki•ocl.oes s Kake our earthly ede,o taught to young girls. The Lane words of love ae our Heave, above notion of marking—of iSOUr applying letters to cloth— was deeply ingrained by e the time a woman became kope So be rorove responsible for her own household. Not surprisingly, the words that appear on the earliest OH sac ed Fa if-nee quilts frequently included WISH rfl'X OA el de the quiltmaker's name and F 00000fl sometimes an important Maria noxbea omen? PP •Ca4roari ndon fur olba.r4 date, such as that of a birth rabePpi agei 79 or marriage. The subtext OOYeO) no4I,G"r of even these simple markings, whether on quilts, PIETIES QUILT/ Maria Cadman Hubbard / probably Austerlitz, Columbia County, New York / 1848 / cotton / 881 / 2 samplers, or other textile 81"/American Folk Art Museum, gift of Cyril Irvin Nelson forms, was an assertion of in loving memory of his parents, Cyril Arthur and Elise Macy Nelson, 1984.27.1 identity. In a society in

Members of Long Island Quilters and Brooklyn Quilters busy at their frames during set up

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96 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

Quilt Day X ee Kogan,director of the museum's Folk Art Institute, welcomed visitors to the 10th annual Quilt Day,held on Saturday, Oct. 4. At 11:15 AM and again at 2:00 PM, Kogan and docent Deborah Ash led tours of the textiles on view in the museum's current exhibition, "The Perfect Game: American Looks at Baseball." Ongoing quilting demonstrations took place from noon to 4:00 PM,staffed by members of area quilt guilds, including the Empire Quilters, Long Island Quilters' Society, Northern Star Quilters, Quilters' Guild of Brooklyn, Quilters of Color, Smithtown Quilters Guild, and Women of Color Quilters Network—NY Chapter. Techniques such as piecing, appliqué, trapunto, and photo transfer were discussed, and new works were shown. At 1:00 PM,fiber artist Melanie Testa presented Applying Metallic Foil on Hand-Dyed Fabrics, a special talk and demonstration.

In addition to the programs open to the general museum visitor, the Folk Art Institute offered two special full-day fiber arts

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workshops, one on Friday, Oct. 3 (Sashiko, a 350-year-old Japanese hand-needlework technique, led by veteran quilt teacher Judy Doenias) and one on Saturday (Wool Appliqué Penny Rug Purse, a favorite craft class given by artist Frances Phillips, an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University). Brother International, which supports the museum's quilting classes by providing sewing machines for students' use, had its latest machines—featuring particular applications for quilters—on hand. The weekend was well attended and enthusiastically acclaimed.

The Folk Art Institute offers hands-on craft courses every semester, including beginners' workshops, such as Introduction to Quiltmalcing, as well as intermediate and advance courses on specific techniques. Consult the Folk Art Institute Course Schedule brochure for specific classes. For more information or to obtain a brochure, please contact Lee Kogan at 212/2651040, ext. 105, or via e-mail at lkogangfollcartmuseum.org.

MUSEUM

NEWS

OBITUARIES

Sister Gertrude Morgan

Howard W. Lanser (1923-2003)

omentum is growing for the February opening of"Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan," the first solo exhibition devoted to an artist of color in the museum's new building. The exhibition, the first large-scale study of the artist's work, will be accompanied by a fully illustrated color catalog, published by Rizzoli, and extensive public programming.

In August, the museum was chosen to receive a $21,000 grant for this project from the New York State Council on the Arts—the second-highest award given in the museum category this year, and one of only 21 projects selected from a field of70 applicants. Additional funding has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Robert A. Roth, and the LEF Foundation. For a preview of this exciting exhibition, see guest curator William A.Fagaly's essay, starting on page 50.

oward Lanser was an integral part of the exhibitions program at the American Folk Art Museum for more than 30 years. As freelance exhibition designer and art handler, he worked with Mary Black and Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. on such early presentations as "The Tinker and His Dam," "Tattoo," and "TwentiethCentury Folk Art." More recently, Lanser was responsible for designing, among other important shows, "Beneath the Ice: The Art of the Fish Decoy,""Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of

M

P.S. 87 Cultural Partners ii Sept. 2,the American Folk Art Museum hosted 80 teachers and administrators from P.S. 87 in Queens, as well as delegates from the Brooklyn Museum of Art,LEAP(Learning Expanded Through the Arts Program), and Create(a dance troupe), to share ideas and plan collaborative projects that would bring the arts to New York City's schoolchildren.

The gathering kicked off the second year of a three-year Annenberg Cultural Partners Grant.

Teachers met with museum docents to explore the historical connections between their social studies curriculum and the artwork represented in the museum's featured exhibition,"The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball." Members from all groups participated in discussions and the sharing of ideas.

Principal Michael Buckley was very pleased with the goals accomplished, and, on behalf of his colleagues, expressed his enthusiasm for working closely with the museum's staff to develop programs that will take place at the museum and at P.S. 87 in the 2003 to 2004 school year.

()

H

American Portraiture," and, in 1999,"The Art of Nellie Mae Rowe: Ninety-Nine and a Half Won't Do." Howard Lanser not only developed the designs for the exhibitions but also worked with the crews to implement his ideas. He was creative, flexible, and was always respectful of budgetary limitations. He also designed exhibitions for the museum's off-site presentations at such locations as the annual Fall Antiques Show, PaineWebber Art Gallery, Federal Hall National Memorial, and World Finan-

cial Center, as well as all of the Great American Quilt Festivals held at the Passenger Ship Pier on Manhattan's West Side.

Always ready to share his extensive knowledge, Howard Lanser had a warm sense of humor and was thoroughly committed to this museum. He is missed by all of us who had the enormous pleasure of working side by side with him.

—Ann-Marie Reilly

Yvonne Lange (1918-2003) r. Yvonne Lange, Director Emerita of the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA)in Santa Fe, N.Mex., died on June 30, after a long illness. During her tenure at MOIFA,Lange was instrumental in acquiring the Girard Foundation Collection for the museum, and through her landmark exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped elevate the institution's status to among America's most prestigious national museums.

A native of Trinidad, Dr. Lange received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. An outstanding scholar in her area of expertise, Lange's research and dissertation focused on the santos(carved images of Catholic saints) of Puerto Rico. Following her retirement in 1983, Lange continued her studies in Christian

D

iconography as it relates to Hispanic-Christian art of the Southwest. In 1991,Lange was invited to be guest curator of the American Folk Art Museum's exhibition,"Santos de Palo: The Household Saints of Puerto Rico." This popular exhibition provided a social and historical context for the Caribbean island's religious carved wooden objects, representing Jesus, Mary,and many Catholic saints, as well as a thorough look at the printed sources, materials of production, and the religious iconography and beliefs surrounding them.

Lange also researched and identified the santeros, or saint carvers, themselves, according to stylistic and regional characteristics.

The Iconographic Program ofSan Xavier del Bac: A Guide to the Churches, Images, and Emblems, a book about the famous mis-

sion in Tucson that Lange coauthored with Richard Ahlborn, will be published by the University of Arizona Press and released late in 2004. Dr. Joyce Ice, director of the Museum of International Folk Art, paid tribute to Lange at a memorial service, with the following excerpted remarks: "All of us stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before us.

We owe a great debt to Yvonne Lange for her professionalism and her dedication as she guided the Museum of International Folk Art during a major expansion of the collection and the facility, and transformed both the institution and the people involved with it."

—Lee Kogan

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 97

TRUSTEES/DONORS

AMERICAN

FOLK

ART

MUSEUM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Executive Committee Ralph 0. Esmerian Chairman ofthe Board L. John Wilkerson President Frances Sirota Martinson, Esq. Executive Vice President and Chairman, Executive Committee Lucy C. Danziger Executive Vice President Joan M.Johnson Vice President Barry D. Briskin Treasurer Jacqueline Fowler Secretary

Margaret Z. Robson Selig D. Sacks, Esq. Bonnie Strauss Nathaniel J. Sutton Richard H. Walker, Esq.

Members Didi Barrett Edward V. Blanchard Jr. Paul W.Caan Barbara Cate David L. Davies Susan Gutfreund

Robert L. Hirschhom Kristina Johnson, Esq. David [Crashes Taryn Gottlieb Leavitt Nancy Mead George H. Meyer, Esq. Cyril I. Nelson Laura Parsons J. Randall Plummer Julia T. Richie

Trustees Emeriti Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Cordelia Hamilton George F. Shaskan Jr.

Marc Brown & Laurene Krasny Brown J. Bruce Antiques Fred & Theresa Buchanan in memory of Sybil Gibson Charles & Deborah Burgess Jim Burk Antique Shows The Burnett Group Marcy L. Bums/American Indian Arts Joyce A. Bums Paul & Dana Cam Lewis P. Cabot Elinor B. Cahn Mr.& Mrs. Donald Campbell Bliss & Brigitte Carnochan Caterpillar Foundation John W.Castello in memory of Adele Earnest Donald N. Cavanaugh & Edward G.Blue Edward Lee Cave Virginia G.Cave Shari Cavin & Randall Morris Peter P. C,ecere Sharon S. Cheeseman Christie's Richard & Teresa Ciccotelli Barbara L Claster Lori Cohen Alexis & George Contos In memory of Daniel Cowin Mrs. Daniel Cowin Jeanne D.Creps Mr.& Mrs. Edgar M. Cullman Elissa F.& Edgar M. Cullman Jr. Joe & Joan Cullman Susan R. Cullman Catherine G. Curran Kendra & Allan Daniel David & Sheena Danziger Lucy & Mike Danziger Peggy & Richard M. Danziger David L. Davies Darwin/Carolinn Pocher & William Woody Joseph Del Valle Vincent & Stephanie DiCicco H. Richard Dietrich Jr. Mr.& Mrs. Charles M. Diker Patricia McFadden Dombal Colette & Jim Donovan Doyle New York/Kathleen M.Doyle Deborah & Arnold Dunn Ray & Susan Egan Gloria Einbender Sharon & Ted Eisenstat Elitzer Family Fund in honor of Anne Hill & Monty Blanchard David & Doris Walton Epner Joyce & Klaus Eppler Ralph 0. Esmerian Susan H.Evans In Memory of Heila D. Everard Sam & Betsey Farber Nancy Farmer & Everette James Mike & Doris Feinsilber Bequest of Eva & Morris Feld Elizabeth C.Feldmann M.Finkel & Daughter Fireman's Fund Insurance Company Deborah Fishbein Alexander & Enid Fisher

Laura Fisher/Antique Quilts & Americana Jacqueline Fowler Beverly Frank Gretchen Freeman & Alan Silverman Mrs. Albert D. Freiberg Susan 0.Friedman Alvin E. Friedman-Kien, M.D. Furthermore, the publication program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund Galerie St. Etienne, Inc. Gallery of Graphic Arts, Ltd. Rebecca & Michael Gamzon Judy & Jules Garel Garth's Auctions, Inc. Rich & Pat Garthoeffner Sidney & Sandra Gecker Nancy Gerber Morad Ghadamian Sima Ghadamian Merle & Barry Ginsburg James & Nancy Glazer Mr.& Mrs. Merle H. Glick Carla T. Goers Edith H. Goldberg Russ & Karen Goldberger Mrs. Toni L. Goldfarb Tracy Goodnow Art & Antiques Ellin & Baron Gordon Howard Graff Jonathan Green Nancy M.& Ben S. Greenberg Greene & Mays American Antiques Marion E. Greene Blanche Greenstein & Thomas Woodard William & Shirley E. Greenwald Peg & Judd Gregory Audrey Elkinson Griff Bonnie Grossman/The Ames Gallery Pat Guthman Alan & Elaine Haid Robert & Linda Hall Cordelia Hamilton Ken & Debra Hamlett Nancy B. Hamon Jeanne & Herbert Hansell Deborah Harding Marion Harris & Jerry Rosenfeld Harvey Art & Antiques Audrey Heckler Donald Heller, Heller/Washam Nina Hellman Jeffrey Henkel Mr.& Mrs. George Henry Mr.& Mrs. Samuel Herrup Ann Hickerson & Martha Hickerson Antonio Hidalgo The High Five Foundation Frederick D. Hill Pamela & Timothy Hill Kit Hinrichs The Hirschhorn Foundation, Robert & Marjorie Hirschhorn, Carolyn Hirschhorn Schenker Historical Society of Early American Decoration Arlene & Leonard Hochman Mr.& Mrs. Joseph C. Hoopes Jr. Carter G. Houck

Sr. Evelyn Houlroyd Ellen E. Howe Mr.& Mrs. Philip Howlett Allen & Barry Huffman Peter D. Hynson Antiques Paul Ingersoll In the Beginning Fabrics Thomas Isenberg In memory of Laura N. Israel Thomas & Barbara Israel The Jamison Williams Foundation Johnson & Johnson Companies Joan & Victor Johnson Kristina Johnson, Esq. Louise & George Kaminow Julie & Sandy Palley and Samuel & Rebecca Kardon Foundation Allan & Penny Katz Edwin U. Keates, M.D. Steven & Helen Kellogg Jolie Keller & Michael Make Richard Kemble & George Korn, Forager House Collection Mrs. David J. Kend Leigh Keno Amy Keys Jacqueline & Jonathan King Phyllis Kind Joe K. Kindig Ill Susan & Robert E. Klein Nancy Knudsen Nancy Kollisch & Jeffrey Pressman Greg K. Kramer David & Barbara ICrashes Dr. Robert & Arlene Kreisler Sherry & Mark ICronenfeld Robert A. Landau Bruno & Lindsey LaRocca Michelle & Lawrence Lasser William & Karen Lauder Jerry & Susan Lauren Wendy & Mel Lavin Mark & Taryn Leavitt The Edith and Herbert Lehman Foundation, Inc. In Memory of Henry J. & Erna D.Leir John A. Levin & Co.,Inc. Bertram Levinston, M.D. Levy Charitable Trust Judy Lewis The Liman Foundation Lipman Family Foundation The 2000 Lipman Fellows Bruce Lisman In Memory of Zeke Liverant Nancy MacKay Nancy & Erwin Maddrey Anne & Vincent Mai Maine Antique Digest The Jane Marcher Foundation Harriet Marple Plehn Trust Paul Martinson, Frances Martinson, & Howard Graff in memory of Burt Martinson Mr.& Mrs. Christopher Mayer In Honor of Nancy Mayer Mrs. Myron Mayer Kerry McCarthy

Joyce B. Cowin Samuel Farber

CAPITAL CAMPAIGN DONORS The American Folk Art Museum announced a $34.5 million campaign to construct and endow its new home on West 53rd Street. As of June 30, 2003, the following donors have contributed $33,800,000: Marjorie W. Abel James & Gail Addiss Dr. & Mrs. Karl P. Adler Alconda-Owsley Foundation Judith Alexander George R. Allen/Gordon L. Wyckoff-Raccoon Creek Antiques American Capital Access The American Folk Art Society Barbara Anderson Ingrid & Richard Anderson Mama Anderson Judy Angelo Cowen Foundation Marie T. Annoual Aame Anton Barbara Ardizone Marion Armstrong R.R. Atkins Foundation Lois S. & Gad Avigad Joan & Darwin Bahm Marcia Bain Lori Ann Baker, Baker & Co. Designs Ltd. Marianne E. Balazs Denny Beach Judy & Barry Beil in honor of Alice & Ron Hoffman Bankers Trust Company Barn Star Productions, Inc. Didi & David Barrett Jimi Barton-Rhinebeck Antiques Fair Joyce & Ron Bassin/Bird In Hand Patricia Beatty Mary F. Beck Ellen Stone-Belic Philip & Leah Bell Laurine Hawkins Ben-Dov Mrs. Arthur M. Berger Julie M.Bemson Big Apple Wrecking & Construction Corporation Mrs. George P. Bissell Jr. Diana H. Bittel Edward V. Blanchard & M. Anne Hill Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund Lenore & Stephen Blank Bloomberg L.P. The Bodman Foundation Booth Ferris Foundation Robert, Katharine, & Courtney Booth Catherine & Chris Botta Marilyn W.Border Edith S. & Barry D. Brisldn/Shirley K. Schlafer Foundation Susan Brodish Florence Brody Sheila & Auron Brog R. Scott Bromley The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston Curtis F. Brown, Hayden Goldberg Mr.& Mrs. Edward James Brown Gail Brown

98 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

DONORS

Ships by

JOHN TAYLOR

Milly McGehee Nancy & Dana Mead Mary 0. Mecagni Robert & Meryl Meltzer Charles W.Merrels Evelyn S. Meyer George H. Meyer Jim & Enid Michelman Mrs. E.J. Milano Mr.& Mrs. Samuel C. Miller Judith & James Milne Jean Mitchell Sandra Moers JP Morgan Chase & Co.,Inc. Keith & Lauren Morgan Morris Levinson Foundation, Inc. Alden & Jane Munson Lucia Cirino Murphy Drew Neisser Cyril Irwin Nelson New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York State Margaret & David Nichols Thurston Nichols Mr.& Mrs. Frank N. Norris Jr. Northeast Auctions, Ronald Bourgeault Susan Nova Sally W.O'Day Odd Fellows Antiques Bequest of Mattie Lou O'Kelley Olde Hope Antiques Cheryl Oppenheim & John Waters The Overbrook Foundation Patsy Palmer & Talbot D'Alemberte Virginia Parks Patemostro Investments Eloise Paula Rolando & Karin Perez Jan Petry Philip Morris Companies Inc. Elizabeth A. Pile Harvey S. Shipley Miller & J. Randall Plummer Frank & Barbara Pollack Lucile & Maurice Pollak Fund Pook & Pook Inc./Ronald & Debra Pook Wayne Pratt, Inc. Fran Puccinelli Jackie Radwin Teresa Ranellone Christopher T. Rebello Antiques Ricco/Maresca Gallery Julia & Leroy Richie Jeanne Riger Marguerite Riordan John & Margaret Robson Foundation Le Rowell Miss Virginia Carolyn Rudd F. Russack Antiques & Books, Inc. Selig D. Sacks Judith Sagan Mary Sams-Ballyhack Antiques Jack & Mary-Lou Savitt Peter L. Schaffer Carol Peden Schatt Shirley K. Schlafer Memorial Fund In Memory of Esther & Sam Schwartz Marilyn & Joseph Schwartz The Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia Phyllis & Al Selnick Jean S. & Frederic A. Sharf The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation In Honor of George Shaskan The George and Myra Shaskan Foundation, Inc. Roz & Steve Shaw Arthur & Suzanne Shawe Elle Shushan Jo Sibley John Sideli Eleanor R. Siegal

Francisco F. Sierra Elizabeth Silverman Skinner, Inc., Auctioneers and Appraisers of Antiques and Fine Art Sanford L. Smith & Patricia Lynch Smith Sarah Barr Snook Elliott & Grace Snyder Mr.& Mrs. Peter J. Solomon Sotheby's Maxine Spiegel The Splendid Peasant/Martin & Kitty Jacobs Nancy T.& Gary J. Stass Frederick Stecker Stella Show Mgmt. Co. Su-Ellyn Stern Tamar Stone & Robert Eckstein Rachel & Donald Strauber Bonnie & Tom Strauss The R. David Sudarsky Charitable Foundation Nathaniel J. Sutton Leslie Sweedler John & Catherine Sweeney William Swislow Takashimaya Co., Ltd. Connie Tavel Richard & Maureen Taylor Nancy Thomas David Teiger Tiffany & Co. Jeffrey Tillou Antiques Peter Tillou Pamela P. Tisza Jean L. & Raymond S. Troubh Fund Tucker Station Antiques Karen Ulfers John & Kathleen Ullmann Lee & Cynthia Vance Jacob & Ray Van Gelder Bob & Ellie Vermillion Joan & Clifford Vemick Joseph & Meryle Viener Robert E. Voelkle David & Jane Walentas Jennifer Walker Clifford A. Wallach Irene N. Walsh Don Walters & Mary Benisek Warburg Pincus The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Elizabeth & Irwin Warren Nani S. Warren Martha Watterson Weeden Brothers: Bill, Alan, Jack, & Don Mr.& Mrs. Alan N. Weeden Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP Frederick S. Weiser David M. Weiss Jay & Meryl Weiss Ed Weissman Julia Weissman Mr.& Mrs. Peter Wells Ben Wertkin David Wheatcroft Harry Wicks Donald K. Wilkerson, M.D. John & Barbara Wilkerson Nelson M. Williams John Wilmerding Charles & Phyllis Wilson Robert N. Wilson & Anne Wright Wilson Dr. Joseph M.& Janet H. Winston Susan Yecies J. Evelyn Yoder Valerie Young Shelly Zegart Antique Quilts Malcah Zeldis L H.& Birgitta X.L. von Zelowitz Bernadette Mary Zemenick Steven J. Zick Jon & Becky Zoler 27 anonymous donors

GARDE RAIL GALLERY SEATTLE, WA TEL. 206.721.0107 WWW.GARDE-RAIL.COM

US Mail Boat photograph by Heather Taylor

H. L. Chalfant tâ&#x20AC;˘ Antiques

Large Copper Running Horse Weathervane by jewel Blue-green verdegris finish. New England, circa 187o. Overall length 4u".

1352 PAOLI PIKE WEST CHESTER, PA 19380 TELEPHONE: 610.696.1862 FAX: 610.696.4160 CHALFANT@C0M CAST.NET

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 99

DONORS

AMERICA'S OLDEST MAKERS OF COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN LIGHTING FIXTURES

DONORS FOR EXHIBITIONS AND OPERATIONS

The American Folk Art Museum appreciates the generous support of the following friends: $100,000 and above Carnegie Corporation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sports Illustrated Van Wagner Communications $99,999—$50,000 Bloomberg L.P. William Randolph Hearst Foundation Leir Charitable Trusts Major League Baseball SwissPeaks Festival Corporation John & Barbara Wilkerson Two anonymous donors

AUTHENTIC DESIGNS www.authentic-designs.com West Rupert, Vermont 05776 (802) 394-7713 • 800-844-9416 Catalogue $3.00

549,999-520,000 Edith S. & Barry D. Briskin Burnett Group Paul & Dana Caan Cahill Gordon & Reindel Mrs. Daniel Cowin Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Lucy & Mike Danziger David L. Davies & Jack Weeden Deutsche Bank Ralph 0.Esmerian Samuel & Betsy Farber Jacqueline Fowler Mr.& Mrs. John H. Gutfreund Mr.& Mrs. Robert Hirschhorn Joan M.& Victor L Johnson Krishna Johnson, Esq. Barbara & David Krashes Mr.& Mrs. Lawrence J. Lasser Latham & Watkins LLP Taryn & Mark Leavitt Frances Sirota Martinson, Esq. Nancy & Dana Mead George H. Meyer, Esq. National Endowment for the Arts New York State Council on the Arts Dr. Laura & Mr. Richard D.Parsons J. Randall Plummer Julia T.& Leroy Richie Margaret Z. Robson Selig D. Sacks Shearman & Sterling Sidley Austin Brown & Wood Bonnie & Tom Strauss Nathaniel J. Sutton Richard H. Walker, Esq. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Fred Wilpon/New York Mets Two anonymous donors $19,999410,000 Altria Group, Inc. Athena Group LLC The Bachmann Strauss Family Fund,Inc. Dr. & Mrs. Alex Berenstein Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Brooklyn Digital Foundry Cadwalader, Wickersham,& Taft Vice President & Mrs. Richard B. Cheney Citigroup, Inc. Consolidated Edison Credit Suisse First Boston Debevoise & Plimpton

100 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation William Doyle Galleries Douglas E. Ente in memory of Ellin Ente Furthermore, the publication program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund Marion Greene Johnson & Johnson Companies The Robert and Luise Kleinberg Fund at the Jewish Communal Fund KPMG LLP Alexa Lambert & Chauncey Parker Lehman Brothers The Lipman Family Foundation, Inc. Mr.& Mrs. Vincent Mai JP Morgan Chase & Co.,Inc. Mr.& Mrs. Keith Morgan National Financial Partners Pfizer, Inc. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Mr.& Mrs. Daniel Rose The Judith Rothschild Foundation The Shirley K. Schlafer Foundation R. David Sudarsky Charitable Foundation The Tomorrow Foundation Weil, Gotshal,& Manges LLP The Jamison Williams Foundation One anonymous donor $9,999—$4,000 The American Folk Art Society AOL Time Warner, Inc. Molly F. Ashby & Gerald M.Lodge The Bloomingdale's Fund of the Federated Department Stores Foundation Bernard & Judy Briskin in honor of Barry Briskin The John R. & Dorothy D. Caples Fund The Jay Chiat Foundation The Judy Angelo Cowen Foundation Peggy & Richard M. Danziger Steven Ente in memory of Ellin Ente Evelyn Frank in honor of Myra & George Shaskan Barry & Merle Ginsburg Audrey B. Heckler Stephen M. Hill JoCarole & Richard Lauder LEF Foundation The Magazine Group Manoogian Simone Foundation Marstrand Foundation Christopher Mayer MBNA America, NA. New York City Department of Cultural Affairs The Mattie Lou O'Kelley Memorial Trust The Overbrook Foundation Pat Parsons Paul & Judy Patemostro Ricco/Maresca Gallery The William P. & Gertrude Schweitzer Foundation, Inc. The George F. and Myra Shaskan Foundation, Inc. E. Newbold and Margaret duPont Smith Foundation Irwin H.& Elizabeth V. Warren Robert N. Wilson/Pheasant Hill Foundation Three anonymous donors $3,999—$2,000 The Acorn Foundation, Massachusetts Mr.& Mrs. Bob Alexander

DONORS

GALERIE SUSI BRUNNER Spitalgasse 10 • 8001 Zurich Tel 01/251 23 42 • Fax 01/ 261 23 49 • www.susibrunnerch Deborah & James Ash Avenue of the Americas Association Jeremy L Banta Ms. Denise Benmosche William & Virginia Birch Alvan & Claude Bisnoff Mr. Thomas Block & Ms. Marilyn Friedman Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon Bonovitz Robert 8c Kathy Booth Edward J. & Margaret Brown John Castle Mr.& Mrs. Edgar M.Cullman Maureen D. Donovan The Charles Edlin Family Charitable Foundation Fastsigns Laurence Fink Ruth Norwich Revocable Trust Allan & Penny Katz Mr.& Mrs. Robert Kleinberg Mr.& Mrs. Lawrence J. Lasser Jerry & Susan Lauren Carl D. Lobe11 Lower Hudson Conference Mary & Stephen Meadow Merrill Lynch Loree & Richard Meyer Mr.& Mrs. J. Jefferson Miller II Leslie Miller & Richard Whorley Donald & Cynthia Murphy Oshman's Foundation Rolando & Karin Perez Dorothea & Leo Rabkin Paige Rense Marguerite & Arthur Riordan John R. Robinson, Esq. Ida & William Rosenthal Foundation Carol Peden Schatt Su-Ellyn Stem Dorothy C. Treisman Mr.& Mrs. John L. Weinberg Gerard C. Wertkin The Zattkel Fund D1,999—$1,000 Mr.& Mrs. A. Marshall Acuff Jr. Mr.& Mrs. Ted Alfond Grace Allen Joseph S. Allerhand James Asselstine & Bette J. Davis Ms. Anne H. Bass Marvin & Jill Baten Mr.& Mrs. Barry Beil Daniel Berman Jessica & Natan Bibliowicz Mrs. Peter Bing Marvin & Lois P. Broder/Lucile & Maurice Pollak Fund Brenda Brody Brooklyn Cyclones Marc & Laurie Krasny Brown Ms. Gale M. Brudner Citicorp Foundation Matching Gifts Program Coach Dairy Goat Farm Congregation Beth Israel, Houston Mr.& Mrs. Edgar M. Cullman Kendra & Allan Daniel Aaron & Judy Daniels Greg A.& Susan Danilow Mr. Gary Davenport Mr.& Mrs. Richard DeScherer Michael Donovan & Nancye Green Louis Dreyfus Holding Company Dunphy Family Foundation, Inc. The Echo Foundation Gloria G.Einbender Forest Electric

Jill Gallagher Mr.& Mrs. Bruce Geismar Dr. Kurt A. Gitter & Ms. Alice Yelen Mr.& Mrs. William Grant Susan Zises Green Cordelia Hamilton Mr.& Mrs. James Harithas Mr. Simca Heled Stephen Hessler & Mary Ellen Vehlow The Hirschhorn Foundation Mr. Paul Hurley Thomas Isenberg Mr.& Mrs. Thomas C.Israel Betty Wold Johnson & Douglas F. Bushnell Richard T. Kanter Nancy Kollish & Jeffrey Pressman Mr.& Mrs. Abraham Krasnoff Robert A. Landau Mr.& Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder Glorya & Fred Leighton Barbara S. Levinson Mr.& Mrs. Carl M. Lindberg Ronnie Livia Mary's East Jane Marcher Foundation Michael T. Martin The Helen R.& Harold C. Mayer Foundation Mrs. Myron L. Mayer Mr.& Mrs. Danny Meyer Virginia B. Michel Natasi & Associates, Inc. Judith & Bernard Newman New York Yankees Foundation David O'Connor Anthony J. Petullo Foundation Robert & Marianne Polak Mr.& Mrs. Mortimer Propp Jack & Roberta E. Rabin Jackie & Howard Radwin Jean Rather Irene Reichert Dr.& Mrs. Roger Rose Robert A. Roth Derald & Janet Ruttenberg Paul J. Schatt Paul & Elizabeth Schaffer Peter L. Schaffer Mr.& Mrs. Marvin Schwartz Semlitz Glazer Foundation Mr.& Mrs. Peter L. Sheldon Harvey S. Shipley Miller Francisco F. Sierra Joel & Susan Simon Richard & Stephanie Solar Jennifer Allan Soros Patricia & Robert Stempel Elizabeth & Geoffrey A. Stern Donald & Rachel Strauber Maryann Sudo David Teiger Dennis Thomas Pastor Frederick S. Weiser Janis & William Weisman Mrs. Joseph M. Winston Four anonymous donors O9994500 Dr. & Mrs. Charles L. Abney Jr. Kristin Accola & Gary Snyder George R. Allen/Gordon L. Wycoff-Raccoon Creek Antiques Mary Lou & Ira Alpert Richard C.& Ingrid Anderson Anthony Armese Lucy & Joel Banker Didi & David Barrett Frank & June Barsalona

Giovanni Gall, La Tinala, Italy

LESLIE MUTH GALLERY Contemporary American Folk Art SINCE 1981 AND NOW ON LINE A sample of artists on the website: Minnie and Greg Adkins Eddie Arning "Uncle Pete" Drgac Jake Harwell William Hawkins Greg Pelner "Alex" Sandoval Derek Webster and Navajo Folk Artists www.lesliemuthgallery.com 221 E. de Vargas Sante Fe New Mexico 87501 phone 505-989-4620 fax 505-466-2816 lesliemuth@aol.com By appointment or chance

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART 101

DONORS

INDI610 ARTS

Pushpa Kun,aii (Bihar, India), 2000

Popular and Folk Art from Asia, Africa and the Americas Cuban Self-taught Art•Latin American Folk Art Haitian Paintings d-Vodou Flags •African Barber Signs Ethnographic Sculpture, Furniture &Textiles 151 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106 215-922-4041 WWw.incligoarts.com

DISTINCTIVE PHOTOGRAPHY OF ARTWORK AND OBJECTS FOR COLLECTIONS, GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS

Matt Flynn PHOTOGRAPHY 212/627 2985 mattflynnphoto@aol.com

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Mr.& Mrs. Myron Bazar Deborah Bergman Mrs. George P. Bissell Jr. Edward V. Blanchard Jr. Dena Bock Mr.& Mrs. James A. Block Mr.& Mrs. Leonard Block Marilyn & Orren Bradley Valerie Brown Miriam Cahn Marcy Carsey Gabrielle & Frank Casson Barbara Cate WE.Channing & Company, Inc. The Chase Manhattan Foundation Matching Gift Program Marjorie Chester Mr. George-Anthony N. Colettis Mrs. Phyllis Collins Stephen H. Cooper & Prof. Karen Gross Susan R. Cullman David & Sheena Danziger Dr. Janet L. Denlinger Nancy Druckman Arnold & Debbie Dunn Shirley Durst Sanford B. Ehrenkranz EvnintAE Charitable Foundation Eva & Morris Feld Fund Burton M.& Helaine Fendelman Thomas K. Figge Jane Fonda Charlotte Frank Ms. Evelyn Frank Mr. & Mrs. John Funabiki Gail Furman,Ph.D. Daniel M.& Lianna Gantt Judy & Jules Garel Gemini Antiques, Ltd. Mrs. Bruce Gimbel Millie & Bill Gladstone Merle & Barbara Glick Henry Goldstein & Linda Broessel Kelly Gonda Ellin & Baron J. Gordon Howard M. Graff Robert M.Greenberg Nanette & Irvin Greif Mr.& Mrs. Richard Herbst Leonard & Arlene Hochman Mr.& Mrs. Robert Hodes John & Laima Hood Pamela J. Hoiles John & Sandra Horvitz Michael T. Incantalupo Mr. & Mrs. Ken Iscol Theodore J. Israel Pepi & Vera Jelinek Todd & Paige Johnson Kandell Fund Mr.& Mrs. Martin Katz Steven & Helen Kellogg Ms. Joan E. Kend Mary Kettaneh John J. Kirby Jr. Mr.& Mrs. Michael Klein Barbara S. Klinger Mr.& Mrs. Stuart Krinsly Nancy Lasalle Judith Lewis Robert A. Lewis Frances & James Lieu Mr.& Mrs. Edward Linde Billie & Phil Logan Gloria Lonergan Nancy Maddrey Esperanza G. Martinez

Chriss Mattsson Mr. & Mrs. John A. Mayer Joan & Martin Messinger Evelyn S. Meyer Michael & Pamela Miles Jonathan Miller & Phyllis Winstral Judith & James Milne Museums New York Cyril Irwin Nelson New Vernon Garden Club Adrienne & Raymond Nielson Olde Hope Antiques, Inc. Robert & Stephanie Olmsted Dr. Burton W.Pearl Ms. Betty Pecore Janet S. Petry Mr.& Mrs. Anthony P. Picadio Mr.& Mrs. Terry Pillow Ms. Deborah C. Quirk Mr.& Mrs. F.F. Randolph Jr. Cheryl Rivers & Steve Simons Ms. Margot Rosenberg—Christie's Abbey Rosenwald Frank & Nancy Russell Mr.& Mrs. Robert T. Schaffner Jean S.& Frederic A. Sharf Margaret Schmidt Mr.& Mrs. Carl J. Schmitt Mr.& Mrs. Michael P. Schulhof Mr.& Mrs. Joseph D. Shein Mr.& Mrs. Ronald Shelp Ms. Elle Shushan Hardwick Simmons Joel & Susan Simon Raymond & Linda Simon Arun & Barbara Singh Arthur M. Siskind & Mary Ann Siskind Stephanie Smither Karen Sobotka Richard & Stephanie Solar Jane Supino Mr.& Mrs. Peter Tishman Mr. Frank Tosto Unity Electric Co., Inc. Mr.& Mrs. David Walentas Donald & Pat Weeden Brenda Weeks-Nerz Bennett & Judie Weinstock Mr.& Mrs. Ira Wender Walter J. & Sandra M. Wilkie Mr.& Mrs. CA. Wimpfheimer Cyria & Melvyn Wolff Family Foundation Rosalie Wood J. Evelyn Yoder Tim & Nina Zagat Diana Zanganas Louis & Susan Zinterhofer Jon & Becky Zoler Benjamin & Barbara Zucker Mr.& Mrs. Donald Zuckert Linda Zukas

DONORS

Intuit

RECENT DONORS TO THE COLLECTIONS David L Davies Ralph 0. Esmerian Sam & Betsey Farber Mary Firmani Etienne Fordl & Dr. Jacqueline Forret Forel Jacqueline Fowler Daniel M. Friedenberg Jules & Judy Garel Sam & Myra Gotoff Alex Palley Grossberg Ray Kass & Dr. Jerrie Pike Wendy Lavin Michael Lerner

Stephen Mazoh Colette F. McDonald Gloria Bley Miller Cyril Irwin Nelson Kyra Palley Margot B. Palley Jan Petry & Angie Mills Shirley Rubenstein Mr. F.C. Seibold Lynn Tackett Estate of Pauline Unger Gerard C. Wertkin

Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art 756 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, IL 60622 312.243.9088 fax 312.243.9089

ANNOUNCEMENT

intuit@art.org AMERICAN

0 Li MUSEUM

Museum Hours and Admissions American Folk Art Museum 45 West 53rd Street New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212/265-1040

Admission: Adults

$9

Students

$7

Seniors Children under 12

Free

Members

Free

Friday evening

5:30-7:30 PM Free to all

Museum Hours: Wednesdayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Sunday

10:30 AM-5:30 PM

Friday

10:30 AM-7:30 PM

Monday and Tuesday

Closed

Open Wednesday-Saturday noon to 5 and by appointment

www.artorg

Group Tours available, call for information 212/265-1040

Public Transportation Subway E or V to Fifth Avenue/53rd Street F to 47-50th Street, Rockefeller Center Bus Ml, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, or M7

PAUL PITT

new works on-line and at the gallery Shop Hours: Daily

10:00 AM-6:00 PM

Friday

10:00 AM-8:00 PM

BEVERLY KAYE 15 LORRAINE DRIVE WOODBRIDGE, CT

203.387.5700 artbraxm by appointment

WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

103

EPSTE1N/POWELL 66 Grand St., New York, N.Y. 10013

By Appointment(212)226-7316 e-mail: art.folkseverizon.net

Jesse Aaron Rex Clawson Donovan Durham Antonio Esteves Victor Joseph Gatto (Estate) Lonnie Holley S.L. Jones Charlie Lucas

Justin McCarthy Old Ironsides Pry Popeye Reed Max Romain Bill Roseman Jack Savitsky Clarence Stringfield Mose Tolliver and other American outsiders

INDEX

Allan Katz Ames Gallery American Primitive Anton Haardt Gallery Authentic Designs Ballyhack Antiques Beverly Kaye Carl Hammer Gallery Cavin-Morris, Inc. Charlton Bradsher Christie's Cherry Gallery Classic Rug David Cook David L. Good Antiques/Sam Forsythe Antiques David Wheatcroft Antiques Dean Jensen Gallery Elliott and Grace Snyder Epstein/Powell Fishdecoy.com, Ltd. Fleisher-011man

104 WINTER 2003/2004 FOLK ART

9 37 17 79 100 30 103 29 33 19 76 22 80 16 36 2 31 24 104 84 38

Galerie Bonheur 95 Galerie Susi Brunner 101 99 Garde Rail Gallery 32 Gilley's Gallery 78 Goodrich & Company Promotions H.L. Chalfant Antiques 99 32 Harris Diamant 21 Harvey Antiques 13 Hill Gallery 102 Indigo Arts Intuit 103 3 J. Crist Back Cover Jackie Radwin Jan Whitlock 75 24 Jeffrey Tillou Antiques Keeling Wainwright Associates 91 86 Kentucky Folk Art Center 30 Laura Fisher Antiques Leslie Muth 101 23 Lindsay Gallery 28 M.Finkel and Daughter MCG Productions/Wilton 83

Mary Michael Shelley 100 102 Matt Flynn Photography McFarland and Company,Inc. 94 Mennello Museum 85 Northeast Auctions Inside Back Cover 12 Odd Fellows 10 Raccoon Creek Antiques, L.L.C. Ricco/Maresca Gallery Inside Front Cover Robert Cargo Folk Art Gallery 93 Sanford L. Smith & Associates 81 77 Skinner, Inc. Sidney Gecker 14 Slotin Folk Fest 89 92 Stella Show Management Stephen O'Brien 28 1 Steve Miller Thomas Schwenke 5 Thurston Nichols 25 Tracy Goodnow 11 Trotta-Bono 4 Walters/Benisek 6 Whitfield Jack 36

Northeast Auctions - A Leader in the Folk Art Market

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NORTHEAST AUCTIONS Ronald Bourgeault, Auctioneer 93 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 Tel:(603) 433-8400

www.northeastauctions.com

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JACKIE RADWIN

Fruit on Marble Artist unknown. Oil on canvas. Circa 1850. 321/4" x 24".

(For similar work see American Folk Art at the Shelburne Museum

by Henry Joyce and Sloane Stephens, pp 80 and 81).

By appointment • San Antonio, Texas •(210) 824-7711 Visit us at our website www.jackieradwin.com