American folk art may be remarkable for the cultural clues it holds, but these often become elusive when the artworks are removed from the context of their creation. For the better part of the twentieth century, however, this is exactly how folk art has been perceived, following a museum model that was established early in the century and that initially provided a useful and reliable framework for organizing material that was then outside the art historical mainstream. Exhibitions were arranged by fine arts categories of sculpture, painting, and decorative arts or divided into thematic categories such as work, play, landscape, and home. Through these presentations, it was certainly possible to appreciate the development of form within each medium and even to understand folk art’s reflection of human concerns. But the artworks were largely divorced from their own history and the myriad forces that imbued them with deeper meaning.
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American Folk Art Museum
45 West 53rd St
New York, NY 10019
The Frick Collection
The Frick can only be called a small museum in contrast with the NY Met that is
across the street by a few blocks. On NY’s Museum Mile, the Frick is a classic example
of what a moderately wealthy collector could do at the turn of the 1900’s.
Also they are responsible for developing:
Directory for the History of Collecting in America
1 East 70th Street (between Madison and Fifth Avenues)
New York, NY 10021
A great small museum – in Hyde Park, NY
The Museum offers a world class collection of objects that span the history of western art from the fourth century BC through the twentieth century. The Museum’s founders, Louis and Charlotte Hyde, acquired the majority of objects during a fifty-year period of avid and highly informed collecting.
The Hyde Collection
161 Warren Street
Glens Falls, NY 12801
Phone: 518-792-1761
Fax: 518-792-9197
info@hydecollection.org
Hill-Stead Museum
Hill-Stead is the family estate of the Pope family. in Farmington, Connecticut.
Designed by Theodate Pope, a student of
Occupied 1901 to 1946, by her parents and then with her
career-diplomat husband John Wallace Riddle, it has a small and stunning collectionof of French Impressionist paintings and sculpture, prints, ceramics, textiles and furnishings.
Hill-Stead Museum
35 Mountain Road, Farmington, CT 06032
Telephone: 860.677.4787
Fax: 860.677.0174
E-mail: stanleyc@hillstead.org
