American Primitive: Discoveries in Folk Sculpture - Hardcover

9780394544670: American Primitive: Discoveries in Folk Sculpture
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Until recently, American primitive sculpture was seen as a kind of folk art: objects whose design and purpose ere rooted in a community of tradition and related to the daily material and spiritual needs of ordinary people. But in recently years, collectors and historians have begun to place this body of art within the realm of fine and not folk art. Pictured here are scarecrows and lampstands, hat forms and face jugs, weather vanes and whirligigs, toys, decoys, and carnival figures, icons, architectural embellishments, three-dimensional protraits, and more. These are artists unconcerned with rules or with the success of their methods, or with the commercial possibilities of their creations. They neither intended nor hoped that their work would be acknowledged as art nor they as artists. This very innocence has produced daring solutions to practical problems and audacious artistic results.

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From Publishers Weekly:
The authors, dealers and collectors of American-folk art, here focus on creations that are macabre, visionary, offbeat, often fetish-like in their raw power. Many of the pieces are anonymous; most have never been exhibited or illustrated anywhere. The polychrome wood Baby in a Chair (found in upstate New York, late 19th cent.) has the magical potency of an African totem. Other compelling works are the phantasmagorical Janus-Faced Root Fantasy and a gaunt, Giacometti-like Scarecrow. The illustrations show amazing weathervanes, shop signs, decoys, face jugs, whirligigs, ships' figureheads, busts, canes, ballot boxes. Calling these pieces "folk" art obscures their significance, the authors insist, and this revelatory surveya major act of cultural restorationbrings to light a body of native American art with affinities to the primitivist-inspired modernism of European artists.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal:
Here is a visual record of an art form generally ignored by mainstream art historians: the sculpture of American folk artists. Drawing primarily on sculpture in private collections, the authors have put together a gallery of unique and fascinating sculpture produced by artists unaware they were artists. These sculptures, running the gamut from utilitarian weathervanes to clever articulated figures called "limberjacks," date from the late 18th century to the present and are arranged by function (canes, weathervanes, etc.) or by subject (animals, religion, symbolism, etc). Each piece is fully described, with information about the artist provided whenever possible; and the whole is tied together with a series of provocative essays. Highly recommended for Americana collections and large libraries. Janice Zlendich, California State Univ. Lib., Fullerton
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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  • PublisherKnopf
  • Publication date1988
  • ISBN 10 0394544676
  • ISBN 13 9780394544670
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages290
  • Rating

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