Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology

March 10, 1998 - May 17, 1998

Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology

March 10, 1998 - May 17, 1998

Premiering at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this major traveling exhibition, organized by the Museum of American Folk Art, New York, examines a powerful range of works by 31 American self-taught artists who span the entire twentieth century, from Horace Pippin, Grandma Moses, and Morris Hirshfield to Howard Finster, Purvis Young, and Thornton Dial. Co-curators Elsa Longhauser and Harald Szeemann have selected artists who have developed individual practices and styles that enable them to transform their experiences, ideas, memories, visions, fantasies, and obsessions into tangible form. The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, drawings and installations that reveal expressive power, graphic presence, and formal vigor within an aesthetic and cultural context.

In conjunction with Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology, the Museum is presenting a companion installation of works by self-taught artists drawn primarily from local private collections (American Wing, Galleries 108 and 119).