The Spirit of Folk Art: The Girard Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art (Museum International Folk Art) - Hardcover

Glassie, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810915227 ISBN 13: 9780810915220

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 1989

Synopsis

The Girard Collection at Santa Fe's Museum of International Art encompasses more than 100,000 works from 100 cultures worldwide. Here, folklorist Henry Glassie has selected 300 objects from the collection to illustrate a wide-ranging study of folk art. The pieces depicted - ceramic figures, beaded purses, intricate textiles, dolls and toys - combine beauty with function. The essay draws upon aesthetics, literature, religion, art history, sociology, and anthropology to examine the creative wellsprings of folk art, while over 50 field photographs show the artists at work evoking the human factor, central to the folk-art tradition.

About this title

From Library Journal

In 50 years of travel, interior designer Alexander Girard amassed an impressive 100,000-work collection of cross-cultural folk art, which he subsequently donated to the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. The collection includes Polish nativity scenes, embroidered Peruvian dance capes, Indonesian shadow puppets, Panamanian molas, Pueblo pottery, and many other diverse examples of the universality of the human creative impulse. Glassie here offers a folklorist's tour of 300 of the objects, examining the nature of folk, art, and folk art in essays that consider aesthetics, literature, religion, art history, sociology, and anthropology. Unlike curators whose aesthetic considerations predominate over cultural analysis, Glassie interprets each artifact in terms of context. This magnificently illustrated title is for large public and academic libraries supporting folk art programs.
- Judith Yankielun Lind, Rose land Free P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Santa Fe's Museum of International Folk Art houses more than 100,000 folk artifacts gathered by architect Alexander Girard during 50 years of global collecting, a passion he pursued well before folk art became widely collected. Indiana University professor of folklore Glassie and Monteaux ( Behind the Mask in Mexico ) here unveil what they consider to be the best of Girard's trove and trace its roots to far-flung artisans still living and working, from Turkish weaver Nezihe Ozkan to Irish flutist Peter Flanagan ("a poor farm laborer, a courtly gentleman, a wildly youthful old man"). The range of material is wide, taking in "utilitarian pottery in the North Carolina Piedmont," 19th-century English samplers, Rajasthani marionettes and Panamanian textiles. The book is as rich in its authoritative and anecdotal text as in its many color photographs, a study and a celebration compressed into a highly readable volume.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0810915227
• ISBN 13: 9780810915220
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276