Museum to feature folk art starting March 28

Grandma (Anna Mary Robertson) Moses, American , 1860-1961. The Old Checkered House, 1853, 1945-1946 . Gouache on Masonite. Unframed: 14 1/8 x 21 1/8 inches (35.88 x 53.66 cm) Framed: 21 11/16 x 28 9/16 inches (55.09 x 72.55 cm). Gift of Mr. Joyce Hall. © 1973 (renewed 2001) Grandma Moses Properties Co., New York.

Folk art from the Midwest as well as rural New England and the south will be on display starting March 28 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

The show entitled A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America is drawn from the collection of Barbara L. Gordon and includes works created between 1800 and 1925 by self-taught or relatively untrained artists.

Attributed to John Scholl (1827–1916). The Wedding of the Turtle Doves, 1907–15. White pine, wire and paint. 37 x 24 x 17 in. Courtesy of the Barbara L. Gordon Collection.

According to the Nelson-Atkins, “Vivid portraits, still lifes, and landscapes, as well as distinctive examples of painted furniture from the German American community, carved boxes, sculpture and decorative arts of the highest quality offer an introduction to more than a century of America’s rich and diverse folk art traditions and exemplify the breadth of American creative expression.”

A Shared Legacy was organized by Art Services International of Alexandria, Virginia, and debuted at the American Folk Art Museum in New York in Dec. 2014. When the exhibition closes in Kansas City July 5, it moves to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and continues in various cities in 2016 and 2017.

“Folk art speaks to the eye and the heart,” said Barbara Gordon in a press release. “For me, folk art represents the quintessential American art, growing indigenously out of the American experience.  American folk art tells the story of our country in vivid colors, shapes, and forms.  The paintings document individuals, places, and memories. The decorated furniture and domestic items, that brought color and style to a home, tell the story of daily life.  Wood carvings, like cigar store figures, trade signs, and carousel animals, tell stories of commerce and recreation in earlier times.”

The museum says this will be its first  American folk art exhibition in 20 years, and ti will also showcase its own folk art collection made up partially of items collected by Kansas Citians in the 1930s and 1940s.