A usable past : American folk art at the Colby College Museum of Art / edited by Lauren Lessing.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colby College. Museum of Art, host institution.

Contributor:

Lessing, Lauren, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Folk art--United States--Exhibitions.

Folk art.

United States.

Art, American--Exhibitions.

Art, American.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

vii, 163 pages : chiefly illustrations (color and black-and-white); 31 cm

Distribution:

New York : D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, [2016]

Place of Publication:

Waterville, Maine : Colby College Museum of Art, [2016]

Summary:

Produced and circulated outside the elite sphere of fine art, folk art appealed to the middle-class Americans who were eager to express their identities, interests, and social ambitions through these decorative, vernacular objects. This catalogue presents new research on the Colby College Museum of Art's important collection of paintings, sculptures, needleworks, and works on paper by self-trained artists working primarily in the eastern part of the United States during the long nineteenth century. Essays by Seth A. Thayer, Jr., and Elizabeth Finch investigate the formation, evolving interpretation, and intended uses of the American Heritage Collection of Edith Kemper Jetté and Ellerton Marcel Jetté - one of the earliest gifts to enter the Colby Museum and the basis of its folk art collection. A third essay by Tanya Sheehan explores the complex relationship between folk art, fine art, and American visual culture. More than sixty catalogue entries by scholars, curators, and Colby students identify previously unknown makers and subjects, uncover new information about the construction and original contexts of works in the collection, and enlarge our understanding of what these artworks meant for the people who made and displayed them.

Contents:

Director's foreword / Sharon Corwin

Introduction: creating a usable past / Lauren Lessing

"An era of jetté-propulsion:" Edith and Ellerton Jetté collect for Colby / Seth A. Thayer, Jr.

A certain kinship: folk art and modernism at Colby College / Elizabeth Finch

Redrawing the lines: American folk and academic portraiture / Tanya Sheehan

Selections from the collection

Notes for catalogue entries

Selected bibliography

Contributors

Image credits

Museum Board of Governors and staff.

Credits:

Essays by Lauren Lessing, Seth A. Thayer, Jr., Elizabeth Finch, Tanya Sheehan.

Entries by Margaret Aiken, Hannah W. Blunt, Paige M. Doore, Anna Fan, Elizabeth Finch, Andrew Parker Gelfand, Shalini Le Gall, Lauren Lessing, Justin McCann, Ramey Mize, Charlotte Emans Moore, Francisca V. Morga López, Nina Roth-Wells, Terri Sabatos, Tanya Sheehan, Earl H. Smith, Elizabeth A. Spear, Seth A. Thayer, Jr., Matt Timme, Diana Tuite, Veronica Vesnaver, Marina Wells.

Notes:

"This publication accompanies the exhibition A Usable Past: American Folk Art at the Colby College Museum of Art, organized by the Colby College Museum of Art, and on view from July 9, 2016 to January 8, 2017." -- title page verso.

Exhibition curated by Lauren Lessing.

A Usable Past was generously funded by the Mirken Family Publication Fund -- title page verso.

ISBN:

9780972848435

0972848436

OCLC:

953100167