Shared Legacy

Barbara L. Gordon is a folk art collector and trustee of the American Folk Art Museum, New York. Richard Miller is an independent curator, formerly at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, VA. Avis Berman is an independent art historian based in New York. Cynthia G. Falk is professor of material culture at Cooperstown Graduate Program, State University of New York. Lisa Minardi is assistant curator at the Winterthur Museum in Wilmington. Ralph Sessions is director of special projects at the DC Moore Gallery in New York and former chief curator at the American Folk Art Museum, New York.

"The message of the introductory essay by Richard Miller, a former curator at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia, is that the complete story of American art has not been told because folk art, the vernacular art of the common man, has been ignored by art historians and relegated to the last galleries in museums after the story of mainstream academic American art has been told. The author points out that more vernacular art than mainstream art was produced. The essays and the catalog entries put the collection in context, giving facts of the artists’ lives and footnoting the research that has identified an artist’s hand or regional traditions. The catalog provides an armchair tour, with thought-provoking essays and an informative catalog that footnotes sources of the latest research.” –Antique Digest"[A Shared Legacy] focuses on the folk art of New England and the Midwest from 1800 to 1925. Carousel animals, illustrated family histories, a sculpture of a smoking lady once outside a tobacco shop, and a huge set of carved wooden dentures made to advertise a dentist are among the objects on view. . ."-HYPER ALLERGIC