The paintings in this exhibition illustrate the diverse practice of folk artists working in the northeastern United States during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The selection demonstrates the array of individual styles inspired by different creative environments outside the "academic" art world, from the professional painter trained in a commercial workshop to the self-taught artist or amateur.

Drawing from the John G. Johnson’s rich collections in Italian Renaissance painting, which included every region of Italy, this installation consists of 10 rare paintings from late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century Lombardy of which Milan was the capital.