Encyclopedia of American Folk Art
Encyclopedia of American Folk Art

Author: Gerard C. Wertkin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-08-02

Total Pages: 724

ISBN-13: 1135956154

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For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclopedia of American Folk Art web site. This is the first comprehensive, scholarly study of a most fascinating aspect of American history and culture. Generously illustrated with both black and white and full-color photos, this A-Z encyclopedia covers every aspect of American folk art, encompassing not only painting, but also sculpture, basketry, ceramics, quilts, furniture, toys, beadwork, and more, including both famous and lesser-known genres. Containing more than 600 articles, this unique reference considers individual artists, schools, artistic, ethnic, and religious traditions, and heroes who have inspired folk art. An incomparable resource for general readers, students, and specialists, it will become essential for anyone researching American art, culture, and social history.

Art, Artisans and Apprentices
Art, Artisans and Apprentices

Author: James Ayres

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2014-06-30

Total Pages: 537

ISBN-13: 1782977457

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Before the foundation of academies of art in London in 1758 and Philadelphia in 1805, most individuals who were to emerge as artists trained in workshops of varying degrees of relevance. Easel painters began their careers apprenticed to carriage, house, sign or ship painters, whilst a few were placed with those who made pictures. Sculptors emerged from a training as ornamental plasterers or carvers. Of the many other trades in a position to offer an appropriate background were ‘limning’, staining, engraving, surveying, chasing and die-sinking. In addition, plumbers gained the right to use oil painting and, for plasterers, the application of distemper was an extension of their trade. Central to the theme of this book is the notion that, for those who were to become either painters or sculptor, a training in a trade met their practical needs. This ‘training’ was of an altogether different nature to an ‘education’ in an art school. In the past, prospective artists were offered, by means of apprenticeships, an empirical rather than a theoretical understanding of their ultimate vocation. James Ayres provides a lively account of the inter-relationship between art and trade in the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries, in both Britain and North America. He demonstrates with numerous, illustrated examples, the many cross-overs in the ‘art and mystery’ of artistic training, and, to modern eyes, the sometimes incongruous relationships between the various trades that contributed to the blossoming of many artistic careers, including some of the most illustrious names of the ‘long’ eighteenth century.

A Deaf Artist in Early America
A Deaf Artist in Early America

Author: Harlan Lane

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2004-09-24

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780807066164

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John Brewster Jr. (1766-1854) was one of the most prominent early American portrait painters. His hauntingly beautiful portraits have a directness and intensity of vision that were rarely equaled, as the images in this book attest. Brewster's portraits have sold astonishingly well at auction, and his work is featured in the collections of prestigious museums, yet curiously little has been written about the life of this deaf artist. Traveling the New England coast to paint the portraits of the merchant class that arose after the Revolution, he lived precisely when a Deaf-World-with its own language, social institutions, and culture-was forming. Harlan Lane, award-winning historian of the Deaf, argues that deaf people are often visually gifted, and that Brewster, as a deaf artist, is part of a long and continuing distinguished tradition. Lane's unprecedented biography both vividly and comprehensively explores Brewster's worlds: he was a seventh-generation descendant of William Brewster, who led the Pilgrims on the Mayflower voyage; he was a member of the Federalist elite; a Deaf man; and, finally, an artist. In 1817, at the age of fifty-one, Brewster attended the first school for the Deaf in America, the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf & Dumb Persons. It's extraordinary to imagine that this was the first time he experienced fluent conversation and real social and intellectual exchange. Yet, as Lane notes, Brewster's ambivalence about this minority reflects the difficult choices confronting many Deaf people, then and now. Including little-known information on the French roots of the American Deaf-World; the Deaf communities of Martha's Vineyard, Maine, and New Hampshire in the nineteenth century; and on contemporary Deaf art, A Deaf Artist in Early America provides a multifaceted glimpse of Brewster, New England history, and the distinctive culture, language, and social institutions of the Deaf in America.

Portraits in the Collection of the American Antiquarian Society
Portraits in the Collection of the American Antiquarian Society

Author: American Antiquarian Society

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13:

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Portraits in the Collection of the American Antiquarian Society updates the documentation of the Societys portrait collection reflecting its growth since 1946 when Frederick L. Weis prepared a checklist. This work was undertaken by Lauren B. Hewes. The collection is an eclectic one that represents many aspects of the history of the Society: the interests of benefactors who gave their collections to the Society and the impulse to commemorate the Societys leadership. A number of portraits came into the collection with or because of related manuscript or book collections or were commissioned by the Society and for these there is extraordinary information about the circumstances of their production.