The Home of Folk Art

American Folk Art Museum – Facing Their Debt Troubles

According to the New York Times the American Folk Art Museum is attempting to sort through its troubles and find a solution that will keep them financially afloat.  Apparently, both the company that insured the museum’s bonds and the museum feel they will be able to find a solution to their debt problem.  The negotiations are currently ongoing.

The American Folk Art Museum, which has struggled financially almost since the day it opened the doors of its new building in 2001, is now facing a moment of reckoning. Read the full story

The Home of Folk Art

Brooke Davis Anderson Leaves the American Folk Art Museum

According to the LA Times, Brooke Davis Anderson is leaving her position as director and curator of the Contemporary Center and Henry Darger Study Center at the American Folk Art Museum in New York.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently lifted a hiring freeze which allowed them the opportunity to create a new position, deputy director for curatorial planning, that Anderson has been taken on to fill.  She is expected to begin her new position in September.

Read the full story in the Los Angeles Times here.

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The Home of Folk Art

Celebrate Henry Darger’s Birthday with the American Folk Art Museum & Rock-and-Roll Legend Patti Smith Live in Concert-Saturday May 15th, 2010

It is a benefit party for the American Folk Art Museum in honor of Henry Darger, one of the most amazing and celebrated outsider artists. Mr. Darger’s work is being displayed at the museum until September 19, 2010, in the exhibition Up Close:Henry Darger and the Coloring Books.

Support the museum and purchase your tickets for this extraordinary birthday celebration which includes an intimate concert with Patti Smith and guest Caroline Jones as well as a special meet and greet with Patti. Read the full story

The Home of Folk Art

Photo-Moorehouse.edu

“Purvis was one of the great geniuses of American art, a remarkable figure,” said Jacquelyn Serwer, chief curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Sadly, the Folk Art community mourns the loss of another one of their own this spring. Read the full story

The Home of Folk Art

From Whittling to Carved Masterworks – Ulysses Davis

Ulysses Davis "Uncle Sam" - photo King-Tisdell Cottage Foundation

Ulysses Davis was a man destined to do great works of art, folk art to be exact.  A lifelong Georgia resident, he made over 300 pieces and displayed his carvings in his Savannah barber shop spanning a time period of over 50 years.  All the while, he had a bigger dream in mind.  Someday his art would be in a museum.  Fast forward 20 years after his death and his art has taken off, literally!  An exhibition of his work is being seen by the masses outside of his home state.  His dream has come to fruition and his art is being featured, rightfully so, in some mighty fine museums.   Read the full story

The Home of Folk Art

Museum of Everything Exhibit

The words London, museum, and old seemingly go together in my book.  However, that is not the case with the new, one of a kind, Museum of Everything.  It is London’s first, yes FIRST, outsider art museum.  And, the Britains are loving it!  It has lured in over twenty thousand visitors in the past three months!  I am fairly certain the free tea and biscuits and movie screenings they offer on the weekends don’t hurt either.  If you mistakenly think that because it is the first of it’s kind that it is an inferior product, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Boasting a who’s who of contributors including Thelma Golden, Edward Ruscha, David Byrne, Terry Winters, and Pete Townshend to name only a few.  This exhibition carries some serious power behind the scenes.  It has also been said the collection of artists displayed, in what is properly titled Exhibition #1, is giving the American Folk Art Museum a run for it’s money – not a small feat.  Read the full story

The Home of Folk Art

A Changing of the Folk Art Scene at one of Americas Finest…

New York’s  American Folk Art Museum boasts  two wonderful locations in the city at 45 West 53rd Street and 2 Lincoln Square.  The Eva & Morris Feld Gallery (Lincoln Square Branch) rolled out their new exhibit in October which is spotlighting some special artists.  Many times Folk art is mistaken as being a more southern art form.  In this new exhibit AMFAM features Folk artists that not only hail from a more northern latitude but actually called New York home.  Enter – The Trilogy.

Read the full story