Women Only: Folk Art by
Female Hands
April 6 - September 12, 2010
Checklist from the exhibition
- Height precedes width precedes depth
-
- Sultana
- Attributed to the workshop of Samuel Anderson Robb (act.
1876-1903)
- New York City
- c. 1880
- Paint on wood with iron
- 86 x 26 1/2 x 28"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.349
- Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
-
-
- Pictorial Table Rug
- Artist unidentified
- New England
- Late nineteenth century
- Wool felt on wool
- 24 1/2 x 71"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Altria Group, Inc.
- 2008.9.4
- Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
-
-
- Dividing of the Ways
- Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses (1860-1961)
- Eagle Bridge, New York
- 1947
- Oil and tempera on Masonite
- 16 x 20"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Galerie St. Etienne, New York, in memory of Otto
Kallir, 1983.10.1
- Copyright ©1969 (renewed 1997), Grandma Moses Properties
Co., New York
- Photo by John Parnell, New York
-
- Anna Mary Robertson was born in rural upstate New York.
She led a spare life, with little schooling and hard farm work. After her
marriage to Thomas Moses the couple moved briefly to Staunton, Virginia,
but were settled in Eagle Bridge, New York, by 1905. She began her artistic
career when she was in her 60s. Initially, and as befitting her nineteenth-century
childhood, she used embroidery as a pictorial medium. When arthritis made
it difficult for her to hold a needle she turned to paint. Like many self-taught
artists, Moses invented strategies that enabled her to bring her artistic
vision to fruition. She collected illustrations and other printed imagery
that became resources for her compositions of landscapes, which often are
filled with people at various activities associated with rural life. Her
paintings were first exhibited locally but soon came to the attention of
the New York art world. Moses's old-fashioned presence captured and soothed
the public imagination at a time of national distress, in the years following
the Great Depression and the onset of World War II. She earned the affectionate
moniker "Grandma Moses" and became one of the most popular self-taught
memory painters of the twentieth century. Beneath the grandmotherly aura
of her person and the surface nostalgia of her painting lay a toughness
and a gift for detailed observation that has made her work of enduring
interest.
-
-
- Grandma Weaver: Portrait of the Artist's Grandmother
- Nan Phelps (1904-1990)
- Hamilton, Ohio
- 1940
- Oil on canvas
- 43 1/4 x 37"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Robert Phelps in loving memory of his wife, Nan
Phelps
- 1992.18.3
- Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
-
- In this affectionate portrait of the artist's grandmother
Vina Weaver (1861-1942), Phelps re-created an archetype that feels true
to the imagination, regardless of whether it is an accurate portrayal of
the sitter. A similar iconic image was propagated by Grandma Moses and
contributed to her artistic success with the public. It is interesting
that Phelps retained the frontality and attention to details of clothing
associated with folk portraiture. The inclusion of a vase of flowers is
a convention associated with portraits of women and speaks to a long tradition
of flower and urn imagery in female arts.
-
-
- Papercut for Benj. S. Farret
- Artist unidentified
- United States
- 1848
- Paint and ink on cut and pasted paper
- 14 7/8 x 12"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in loving memory of Jean Lipman
- 2004.14.2
- Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
-
- Aspects of memory have often played a role in early women's
arts: quilts incorporate remnants of fabric associated with specific occasions,
forming a textile scrapbook or album, and mourning pieces document loss
through image and statistical information. This unusual paper assemblage
uses the "language of flowers" to construct a memory of Benjamin
S. Farret. In this symbolic language, each botanical specimen carries its
own significance. The flowers comprising the bouquet would thus communicate
a depth of meaning understood only by those able to interpret the selection
of blossoms. In its precisely cut leaves and petals and its layered assembly,
the papercut recalls the work of Mrs. Delany (1700-1788), a genteel Englishwoman
with an avid interest in the natural sciences who was renowned for her
skills in embroidery and paper arts. At the age of 72, she started a series
of one thousand botanical collages in a technique of her own devising that
she called "paper mosaics." This project may have been inspired
by the profusion of botanical works based on the system of classification
set forth by the Swedish scientist Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae
(1735).
-
-
- Tinsel Painting: Vase of Flowers
- Artist unidentified
- United States
- c. 18551865
- Reverse painting and foil on glass
- 17 3/8 x 14 x _" (framed)
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Day Krolik Jr.
- 1979.3.3
- Photo by John Parnell, New York
-
- Tinsel paintings follow in a long tradition of still-life
painting associated with female artistry. Taking their cues from earlier
forms, tinsel paintings are a hybrid expression that combine the still
life of theorem painting, the reflective materials used in many neoclassical
decorative arts, and the reverse-painting-on-glass ormolu mats that framed
much Federal needlework. Technically, they are reverse paintings on glass,
with metallic foil crumpled and applied behind unpainted areas to provide
shimmering highlights when caught in the reflection of candle- or gaslight.
American Victorian tinsel paintings flourished between the mid-1830s and
the end of the century, but their heyday occurred during the 1860s with
the publication of Art Recreations, which gave instructions for
thirty decorative techniques. Tinsel painting was taught in schools for
young women, and it was also practiced at home. Many are original designs,
while others were available as kits or instructions found in ladies' magazines.
Tinsel painting has also been called Oriental, Crystal, or Pearl painting
because of the use of additional reflective materials such as mica and
mother-of-pearl.
-
-
- Finishing the Quilt
- Nan Phelps (1904-1990)
- Hamilton, Ohio
- 1980
- Oil on canvas
- 28 1/2 x 44 1/4"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Robert Phelps in loving memory of his wife, Nan
Phelps
- 1992.18.1
- Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York
-
- Nan Phelps might be considered a second-generation Grandma
Moses in her exploration of memory as a filter for artistic expression.
Unlike Moses, Phelps was born in the twentieth century, but she had a similarly
tough life until her second marriage, to Robert Phelps, in Ohio. She gained
recognition in the 1940s for her detailed portraits of family members engaged
in domestic activities. This painting invites the viewer to share in the
calm intimacy of generations of women gathered around a quilting frame.
A sense of community pervades the scene, while continuity is ensured by
the presence of a young pregnant woman.
-
-
- Stars and Pentagons Quilt
- Artist unidentified
- United States
- 1880-1900
- Silk
- 81 x 44" (framed)
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler
- 1981.2.1
-
- This quilt is similar to the one being made in the painting
by Nan Phelps. It is likely that Phelps was depicting a cotton quilt, which
evoked an old-fashioned and comforting association consistent with the
tenor of the painting. This late-nineteenth-century example, however, is
made entirely of silk. By midcentury, domestically produced silk had become
available to a broader cross-section of women. Popular ladies' magazines
such as Godey's Lady's Book published patterns for all-silk patchwork,
and the silk show quilt became an expression of taste and status. The Crazy
pieced impression of this quilt is deceptive. It is actually a highly organized
construction of pieced pentagons and five-pointed stars. The quiltmaker
created the sensation of an irregular appearance by substituting wavy rather
than straight lines in the sashing and rotating the orientation of the
small and large pentagons within the blocks and along the sashing. The
piecework inside the large pentagons is fairly consistent, but the use
of various light and dark fabrics contributes to the general Crazy feel
of the decorative quilt top. This may be an original design, as no similar
example or published pattern has yet been discovered.
-
-
- Richard Inksons Double Pocketbook
- Artist unidentified
- Possibly Pennsylvania
- 1776
- Wool on linen with silk lining and wool twill tape binding
- 10 1/2 x 8 1/4" (open)
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.289
- Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
-
-
- Pocket
- Artist unidentified
- Pennsylvania
- c. 1740-1770
- Crewel on linen with cotton and linen binding
- 10 1/4 x 8 1/4"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.290
- Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
-
-
- Pocketbook with Basket of Flowers
- Artist unidentified
- Pennsylvania, possibly Chester County
- c. 1720-1750
- Silk and metallic thread on silk over linen with spangles
- 4 1/2 x 5 1/2" (closed)
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.292
- Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
-
-
- Reticule with Still Life
- Possibly Ruth Brown (dates unknown)
- Brattleboro, Vermont
- c. 1825
- Watercolor and ink on velvet with silk lining and woven
ribbon tie
- 9 x 8 1/2"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.291
- Photo © 2000 John Bigelow Taylor, New York
-
-
- Crewel Bedcover
- Artist unidentified
- New England or New York State
- 1815-1825
- Wool with wool embroidery
- 100 x 84"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Virginia Esmerian
- 1995.32.1
-
- This richly embellished bedcover belongs to a small group
of early American textiles made primarily in Massachusetts and New York
State and ascribed to a period from about 1760 to 1830. Most are worked
on a black or, occasionally, brown twill-woven woolen foundation, and they
share a similar composition of a basket of flowers against a field of vines
and flowers. The dense surface embroidery is worked in crewel, a worsted
yarn of loosely twisted two-ply colored threads. In spirit, it draws inspiration
from seventeenth-century English crewelwork, which was influenced by the
lush colors and complex foliate and flower designs of imported hand-painted
Indian textiles, such as palampores. The border further evokes the flamepoint
embroidery popular for use in eighteenth-century men's wallets, such as
the example in this exhibition made for Richard Inksons. The individual
motifs may have been derived from English pattern books such as Richard
Shorleyker's A Schole House for the Needle (1632). In America, the
designs received a more naturalistic interpretation and were worked in
a smaller variety of stitches than their English precedents, mainly self-couching
Roumanian, flat, outline, and stem, though other stitches were occasionally
used as well.
-
-
- Hannah Carter Canvaswork Picture
- Hannah Carter (dates unknown)
- Boston
- c. 1748
- Silk and wool on fine linen
- 21 1/16 x 18 7/8"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.279
- Photo by John Parnell, New York
-
- Hannah Carter's elegant lady in a pastoral setting belongs
to pre-Revolutionary Boston's most famous group of needleworks known collectively
as "fishing lady" pictures. It features some of the classic motifs
of seventeenth-century English needlework, such as birds, insects, berries,
oversize flowers, and verdant hillocks, combined with figures based on
English and French prints of the period. It is one of a group of related
pastoral embroideries worked by young girls from some of the wealthiest
colonial families while attending Boston boarding schools. Today, seventeen
within a group of fifty-eight related pieces actually depict the fishing
lady, but only six makers have been identified, and the schools they attended
have defied discovery. The patterns, based on English prototypes, may have
been drawn and distributed by a Boston schoolmistress such as Mrs. Susanna
Condy, who advertised her patterns as early as 1738. The canvasworks range
in size from ten by twelve inches to monumental chimney pieces four feet
wide and are worked in crewels and some silk threads on finely woven linen.
-
-
- Crewelwork Picture
- Artist unidentified
- New England, probably Massachusetts
- c. 1750-1760
- Wool on linen
- 9 x 7 3/8"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Gift of Ralph Esmerian
- 2005.8.52
- Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
-
- To date, only one clearly related group of colonial crewelwork
pictures is known, featuring a seated shepherdess who is usually accompanied
by a shepherd in a large black hat. The school where the girls stitched
these pictures has not been identified. The earliest teacher to advertise
such work in Boston was Susanna Condy, who offered "All sorts of beautiful
figures on Canvas for Tent Stick [sic]," as well as "Cruels
of all sorts," in the Boston News-Letter (April 27/May 4, 1738).
The small size of this enchanting crewelwork, with its unusual flowering
tree and lively red horse, suggests that the unidentified maker was quite
young.
-
-
- Rebecca Carter Sampler
- Rebecca Carter (1778-1837)
- Providence, Rhode Island
- 1788
- Silk, metallic thread, and human hair on linen
- 19 1/4 x 13 1/2"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.286
- Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
-
- The artistic success of a sampler is due to the maker's
skill, but it is also largely dependent on the talents of the schoolmistress
who supplied the pattern and instruction. This sampler testifies to the
strengths of Mary Balch (1762-1831), whose forty-five years of teaching
in Providence produced perhaps the largest quantity of recognizable needlework
known to survive from an early New England school. Among the most prized
samplers from the Balch school are renditions of prominent Providence buildings.
-
- The lustrous silk needlework by Rebecca Carter is one
of the most significant samplers to survive from the eighteenth century.
It portrays the 1762 State House in Providence, though it shows only three
rather than five bays. Seven elegant figures, with human hair, sport among
an abstract pastoral landscape of rolling pastures and oversize flowers.
The work is initialed at the bottom and, contained within a two-handled
urn, are the maker's full name and the year she made the sampler. A letter
written in adulthood by Rebecca Carter Jenckes reveals that the needlework
was begun by her sister Ann at the school of Abigail Wilkinson in Newport
and completed by Rebecca at the age of 10 in Miss Balch's school in Providence.
This notation led to the rediscovery of Abigail Wilkinson's school, one
of the most respected Newport schools of the Revolutionary period. It further
reveals that the frame was provided by Providence cabinetmaker John Carlile,
thus making it a rare eighteenth-century Rhode Island sampler frame of
known provenance.
-
-
- Newburyport Needlework Picture
- Artist unidentified
- Newburyport, Massachusetts
- c. 18051810
- Silk on linen
- 16 1/4 x 17 1/2"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.287
- Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
-
- This unusual needlework is solidly worked in silk embroidery.
It features a grand three-story Federal mansion whose carefully depicted
details include mullioned windows, double-end chimneys, a widow's walk,
and a fanlight over the impressive doorway. The front garden is filled
with beautiful flowering vines protected by a white fence from animals
grazing in the pastoral landscape. This elegant scene is peopled with similarly
refined figures who ramble along the paths in fashionable slim cream- and
rose-striped dresses for the women and cream- and rose-colored suits for
the men.
-
- There is no evidence to indicate who embroidered this
picturesque vision; it descended in the family of Nancy Todd Morrison (18361935),
but how she acquired it is not known. She was born in Ripley, Maine, and
educated at the Sanbornton Bridge Conference Seminary and Female College
in New Hampshire, and was later a teacher and artist in Rowley, Massachusetts.
She died in Braintree, Massachusetts, and the embroidery became the property
of her niece.
-
-
- Mary Coffin Sampler
- Mary Coffin (1790-1864)
- Newburyport, Massachusetts
- 1801
- Silk on linen
- 15 x 20 1/2"
- Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York
- Promised gift of Ralph Esmerian
- P1.2001.283
- Photo courtesy Sotheby's, New York
-
- Mary (1753-1815), Elizabeth (1760-1853), and Martha (1764-1827)
Emerson were among the most important teachers working in Newburyport,
Massachusetts, during the Federal period. Their father, a bookbinder and
stationer, served as Newburyport's first postmaster, from May 13, 1775,
until his death. Connections with important families contributed to the
long success of their school, beginning in the 1780s. Some of Newburyport's
most significant samplers were worked under the guidance of the Emerson
sisters, including one of the most famous group of samplers, dated between
1799 and 1806 and known as the "shady bower" needleworks because
of the verse that appears on ten out of eleven extant examples:
-
- Here in this green and shady bower
- Delicious fruits and fragrant flowers
- Virtue shall dwell within this seat
- Virtue alone can make it sweet
-
- This sampler was worked by10-year-old Mary Coffin in
1801. It features a grape arbor, a pond, flowering trees, a butterfly,
and five figures, including a gentleman fishing in a pond and a young woman
holding a bunch of grapes. The woman is shaded from the sun by a silk umbrella
held over her head by a black figure standing behind, although slavery
had been legally abolished in Massachusetts for some years by the time
this sampler was stitched. Nine other schoolgirl embroideries share Mary
Coffin's basic pattern, with minor variations.
-
-