Folk Art Frenzy by user from Antiques & Fine Art magazine

Traditional American folk art—described as “extraordinary objects made by ordinary people”—has reached a new level in public consciousness that its eighteenth-nineteenth-century makers probably wouldn’t have dreamed possible.

With weathervanes selling in the six figures and a year of record-breaking industry sales, including a game board that sold for $46,000, the folk art market is, according to one dealer, “hot as a pistol.”

The museum world is right on target with a few spectacular current and upcoming events. American Folk, the first major exhibition of American folk art in the history of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston presents some 200 objects in all media. A highlight of this blockbuster show is Erastus Salisbury Field’s Joseph Moore and His Family, measuring 82 3/8 x 93 3/8 inches and a gift of the great collector Maxim Karolik to the museum. On view through August 5. Read more about the show in this issue’s article by curator Sue Welsh Reed, or visit www. mfa.org.

Founded in 1947 by pioneering folk art collector Electra Havemeyer Webb, Vermont’s Shelburne Museum reopens its three historic houses on June 2 following an eighteen-month curatorial reinterpretation. The houses have been reexamined in light of new research on Mrs. Webb’s collecting tastes, which were not always understood, as her own mother is said to have commented, “How can you, Electra, you who have been brought up with Rembrandts and Manets, live with such American trash?”

Mrs. Webb’s passion for folk art developed into a significant part of Shelburne’s diverse 80,000-object “collection of collections” that includes everything from Monets to carousel animals. Exhibitions through October 1 include: Images in Folk Art: Quilts and Sculpture and For Hearth and Home: Hooked Rugs in America. For more information, call 802.985.3346.

One of today’s most prominent collectors of American folk art, Ralph Esmerian, has recently given his legendary 400-object collection to the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City. Many celebrated icons of American art, such as the Statue of Liberty weathervane, will be on display when the entire Esmerian Collection and many more wonderful gifts, including the Field portraits shown here, are installed in the museum’s $22 million new building, scheduled to open this December.

As the Museum of American Folk Art marks its 40th anniversary this year, it becomes the beneficiary of a much-anticipated new show to be added to “antiques week” in New York. The American Antiques Show, January 17–20, 2002, will feature an impressive roster of top Americana and folk art dealers, including Allan Katz, David Wheatcroft, and Ricco/ Maresca. For more information, call 212.977.7170.