“Folk Art shares a special niche at the nexus of our design world. It speaks to a historical period while evoking a decidedly timeless take on the spirit and evolution of art and culture of our time.” -- Campion Platt

1stdibs and The New York Design Center present Folk Tales: Bringing Folk Art Home from January 24 through February 25, 2012. Continuing Americana Week in New York City, this important selling exhibition features a collection of rare and extraordinary examples of American Folk Art and Ephemera curated by five of the country’s leading Americana specialists and 1stdibs dealers including Jeff R. Bridgman American Antiques, Just Folk and Judith and James Milne. Additional galleries presenting include the Ames Gallery and A Bird in Hand. All items are for sale.

FOLK TALES is a group show of independent dealers from across the United States who will highlight museum-quality examples of highly collectible quilts, weathervanes, flags, outsider and tramp art, game boards, original-surface painted furniture, trade signs and one-of-a-kind pieces, all of which offer a fascinating view into the American decorative past. The show will include a broad range of items priced from the affordable (under-$500) to pique the interest of the budding collector to museum-quality to satisfy the ardent enthusiast ($100,000).

Some iconic pieces come from the Michael and Gael Mendelsohn Collection, others have been published in books on American Folk Art including The Intuitive Eye and American Vernacular or have been featured previously in museum exhibitions. Contemporary Outsider artists include Harry Underwood and Jim Bloom, both of whom have gained a loyal following. American Folk Art is enjoying resurgence among museums such as New York’s American Folk Museum, and the Inuit and Outsider Art Museum in Chicago; celebrity collectors including Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Rivers, Martha Stewart and Barbra Streisand; and interior designers Ellie Cullman, Ralph Harvard, Campion Platt, and Michael Smith who have an appreciation and desire to own and preserve traditional folk art and creative expressions of contemporary self-taught artists.

 

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