FALL OFFERING AT FENIMORE
Stephen C. Clark’s Primitives
In Exhibit Opening Saturday
COOPERSTOWN – An exhibit, “American Folk Art: Seven Decades of Collecting,” featuring weathervanes, portraits, pottery and other examples assembled since Stephen C. Clark began the collection 70 years ago, opens this Saturday at The Fenimore Art Museum.
Clark’s major purchases from private collections such as those of modernist sculptor Elie Nadelman and pioneering collector Jean Lipman form the core of the Fenimore’s folk art collection.
In recent years, the collection has expanded to include the works of important 20th-century folk artists such as Grandma Moses and Ralph Fasanella, both on view in the museum’s Main Gallery.
The idea of American Primitives goes back to 1930, when Holger Cahill, Newark Museum curator, assembled a sampling of 18th– and 19th-century pieces he defined as “the expression of the common people, made by them and intended for their use and enjoyment”
Works in “American Folk Art” represent of Cahill’s vision, according to the Fenimore Museum announcement.
The exhibit is supported by anonymous donors in honor of Jane Forbes Clark and in memory of her grandfather.
Fenimore President Paul D’Ambrosio will discuss the exhibit at a Food for Thought program 12:30-2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 11, at the museum.