American Folk

Folk art has been part of the American idiom for nearly as long as America has been a nation. Today it remains one of the best-loved and most fervently collected forms of American art, a diverse and authentic vernacular expression. American Folk presents over 60 remarkable objects from one of the country's most prominent collections of folk art, many of them never before published. Included are paintings, carvings, textiles, prints, frakturs, furniture, and utilitarian objects, dating from the late 18th to the early 20th century. They include such masterpieces as Erastus Salisbury Field's lush The Garden of Eden, E.L. George's surrealistic Child in a Rocking Chair, a complex, monumental quilt by the former slave Harriet Powers, and Wilhelm Schimmel's extraordinary carved animals--as well as a remarkable assortment of whirligigs, windmills, decorated chests, figurines, and even carousel animals. The introductory essay by curator Gerald W.R. Ward discusses the elusive notion of ''folk art'' itself and presents the history of its acquisition by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the MFA, American Folk is a vibrant and engaging introduction to one of our proudest cultural traditions.

Gerald W.R. Ward is Katharine Lane Weems Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His previous books include "Elegant Pale: Three Centuries of Precious Metals in New York City", "American Case Future in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University", "The Assembly House, The Peirce-Nichols House, Decorative Arts and Household Furnishings in America, 1650-1920" (with Kenneth L. Ames), and, as editor, "Perspectives on American Furniture" and "The American Illustrated Book in the Nineteenth Century". He lives in New Hampshire.