American Folk Art, American Outsider Art and American Self-Taught Art

American Folk, Outsider and Self-Taught Art

From other websites

(above: Horace Pippin, The Trial of John Brown, 1942, oil on canvas, De Young Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

George Voronovsky: Memoryscapes is a 2023 exhibit at the High Museum of Art which says: "As the first major public presentation of this self-taught artist's work, this exhibition connects his fantastically colorful memory paintings to the places and traditions he cherished back home in Ukraine, which have once again been devastated as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion. Though Voronovsky's Colony Hotel room is not decorated as it once was, the exhibition gestures to its former magnificence, through imaginative hangings and graphics, as a space for beauty, memory, and healing." Accessed 4/23

"Great and Mighty Things": Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection, an exhibition from the Philadelphia Museum of Art held March 3, 2013 - June 9, 2013, from Philadelphia Museum of Art. Accessed August, 2015.

History of Tramp Art, by Clifford A. Wallach, from TrampArt.com. Accessed August, 2015.

"The History of Tramp Art" and "The History of Hobo Art" reprinted from the book Hobo and Tramp Art Carving: an authentic American folk tradition, by Adolph Vandertie with Patrick Spielman, from the website of Matt Lippa or Elizabeth Schaaf. Accessed August, 2015.

Horace Pippin: The Way I See It, an exhibit held April 19 - July 19, 2015 at the Brandywine River Museum of Art. Includes video. Accessed February, 2016

Improvisational Eye: Works on Paper by Self-Taught Artists is a 2018 exhibit at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts which says: "Some of the twentieth-century's most innovative artists, those now typically described as self-taught, reveled in the use of unusual and distinctive materials, many of which were not generally associated with the production of art." Accessed 12/19

Inside the Outside: Five Self-Taught Artists from the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation is a 2017 exhibit at the Baker Museum which says: "This exhibition features the work of five visual artists who operate within the genre of "self-taught art," a sweeping term applied to artists who, for various reasons, did not benefit from, nor were influenced by, a formal art education." Accessed 4/17

Insider/Outsider Art: Selections from Bay Area Collections, an exhibit held September 18 - November 20, 2011 at The Bedford gallery · Lesher Center for the Arts, from Bedford gallery. Texts include press release. Accessed August, 2015.

IntuOutsiderArt is a private collection of outsider art with numerous online artists biographies. Accessed August, 2015.

Ken Grimes: ELUSIVE MESSAGES, an exhibit held January 19 - April 27, 2007 at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. Includes exhibit brochure. Accessed February, 2015.

Krause & Spellman: Scenes from a Lost America is an exhibit catalog available for online viewing at the Kentucky Folk Art Center website on the page "Past Exhibition Catalogs" listed under 2011 catalogs. Accessed April, 2016.

LaVon Williams: Rhythm in Relief is an exhibit catalog available for online viewing at the Kentucky Folk Art Center website on the page "Past Exhibition Catalogs" listed under 2009 catalogs. Accessed April, 2016.

The Legacy of Ferdinand A. Brader, an exhibit held December 4, 2014 - March 15, 2015 at the Canton Museum of Art. CMA says "This original retrospective exhibition showcases more than 40 graphite pencil drawings by Brader (1833-1901), a Swiss immigrant and itinerant folk artist who captured views of daily life on family homesteads and businesses during his travels through Pennsylvania (including Berks, Lancaster and Lebanon counties) and Ohio (including Stark, Tuscarawas, Wayne, Medina, Portage and surrounding counties). ... Brader's monumental drawings (30-by-40 inches and larger) -- using paper and graphite pencil, which were readily available at the time -- are dramatically accurate scenes, and they are mostly portrayed from an elevated perspective." Accessed February, 2016.

Linvel Barker: Works from the Collection of Rita Biesiot exhibit catalog is available for online viewing at the Kentucky Folk Art Center website on the page "Past Exhibition Catalogs" listed under 2012 catalogs. The exhibit was held July 19 through Oct. 27, 2012 at Morehead State University's Kentucky Folk Art Center. The Morehead News says: "The exhibition features more than 40 wood carvings by Elliott County folk artist. Barker, like many of his generation, had been a part of the great Appalachian outmigration during the two decades that followed World War II." Accessed April, 2016.

Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman is a 2016 exhibit at the New-York Historical Society which says: "Influenced by the "peasant arts" of his native Poland and other European countries, Nadelman began collecting after immigrating to New York City in 1914. There he met and married the wealthy and cosmopolitan Viola Spiess Flannery (1878-1962) in 1919, with whom he collected American and European folk art with an all-consuming passion." Accessed 2/17

Mark Anthony Mulligan: You Must Withstand the Wind is an exhibit catalog available for online viewing at the Kentucky Folk Art Center website on the page "Past Exhibition Catalogs" listed under 2005 catalogs. Accessed April, 2016.

Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered is a 2022 exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum which says: "Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered will reintroduce a singular self-taught artist of the 1930s and 1940s to contemporary audiences... Featuring loans from private and public collections, the exhibition features over 40 of the self-taught artist's paintings, including iconic works such as Girl with Flowers, Stage Beauties, Parliamentary Buildings and Inseparable Friends. Accessed 12/22

Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered is a 2023 exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum which says: "Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered reintroduced a singular self-taught artist of the 1930s and 1940s to contemporary audiences. Celebrated as one of the year's best by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Hyperallergic, the exhibition represents the most comprehensive gathering of Hirshfield's work ever assembled. It featured over 40 of the self-taught artist's paintings, including iconic works such as Girl with Flowers, Stage Beauties, Parliamentary Buildings, and Inseparable Friends." Accessed 9/23

Mystery and Benevolence: Masonic and Odd Fellows Folk Art is a 2024 exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum which says: "The traveling exhibition Mystery and Benevolence: Masonic and Odd Fellows Folk Art, curated by the American Folk Art Museum, showcases more than 80 intriguing and captivating objects, ranging from grave markers and serpent-headed staffs to embroidered textiles and ceremonial regalia. Recalling the golden age of American secret societies, the exhibition focuses on two fraternal brotherhoods, the Freemasons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which have deep historical roots in America. The art associated with these fraternal practices is both mystical and evocative, often displaying an element of strangeness. It is rich in symbols that are simultaneously familiar and uncommon. Delving into the cryptic symbols and hieroglyphs used in the ceremonies and ritualized performances of these brotherhoods, Mystery and Benevolence unravels the histories of the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows." Accessed 3/24

Go to page 3

Return to Folk Art

Return to Topics in American Representational Art

See our Museums Explained to learn about the "inner workings" of art museums and the functions of staff members. In the exhibitions section find out how to get the most out of a museum visit. See definitions for a glossary of museum-related words used in articles.

To help you plan visits to institutions exhibiting American art when traveling see Sources of Articles Indexed by State within the United States.

Unless otherwise noted, all text and image materials relating to the above institutional source were provided by that source. Before reproducing or transmitting text or images please read Resource Library's user agreement.

Our catalogues provide many more useful resources.

American Representational Art has links to dozens of topics.

Distinguished Artists is a national registry of historic artists.

About Resource Library

Resource Library is a free online publication of nonprofit Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO). Since 1997, Resource Library and its predecessor Resource Library Magazine have cumulatively published online 1,300+ articles and essays written by hundreds of identified authors, thousands of other texts not attributable to named authors, plus 24,000+ images, all providing educational and informational content related to American representational art. Texts and related images are provided almost exclusively by nonprofit art museum, gallery and art center sources.

All published materials provide educational and informational content to students, scholars, teachers and others. Most published materials relate to exhibitions. Materials may include whole exhibition gallery guides, brochures or catalogues or texts from them, perviously published magazine or journal articles, wall panels and object labels, audio tour scripts, play scripts, interviews, blogs, checklists and news releases, plus related images.

What you won't find:

User-tracking cookies are not installed on our website. Privacy of users is very important to us. You won't find annoying banners and pop-ups either. Our pages are loaded blazingly fast. Resource Library contains no advertising and is 100% non-commercial. .

Links to sources of information outside our website are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other websites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. We neither recommend or endorses these referenced organizations. Although we include links to other websites, we take no responsibility for the content or information contained on other sites, nor exert any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see our General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.

*Tag for expired US copyright of object image:

**Tag for some rights reserved:

Search Resource Library