The Clarion (Spring 1974)

THE CLARION ANNUAL REPORT-1973 AND NEWSLETTER

The Museum of American Folk Art 49 West 53 Street, New York, New York 10019 Number 4

Spring 1974

This 19th Century Chalk Cat from Museum's permanent collection is currently being shown in "The Flowering of American Folk Art" exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from April 22-June 2nd.

TO OUR MEMBERS This year I should like to devote this message exclusively to the subject of membership, the role and responsibility the members play in the growth and development of our Museum and the privileges and participation they can expect in return.

The Museum's first need is for support monies.

Not only is it increasingly costly to operate the Museum each year at the present level of service, but we must also develop new funds to expand the Museum to at least the point where its substantial permanent collection can be shown to advantage at all times along with the special exhibitions we presently offer and hope to improve upon. Furthermore, we need additional space to offer educational functions we are most eager to undertake for both the school children of the New York area and for the members themselves.

Each of you can help the Museum in three ways: first, at the time your membership comes up for renewal, we ask that you increase your level of support by choosing a higher membership category. Second,each of you know friends who are not presently acquainted with the Museum who might be interested in its programs and activities if you would introduce the Museum to them. We ask each of you to try and find five new members.

Third, some of you may have funds that are your practice to give to charitable and educational organizations each year. We ask you to consider the Museum in this respect. Such gifts are tax deductible.

It cost the Museum approximately $6.40 to service each basic membership with the result that the $15 income, therefore, contributes only $8.60 to the general support of the Museum. Unless we raise the price of each membership category, we must count on new memberships to increase this contribution to the overhead of the Museum.

More income will help us to build a better Museum. Here are some of the new activities we would like to introduce: — — — — — —

A series of "how to" courses that will demonstrate how different categories of folk art objects were conceived and made. The first of these are already scheduled.

A series of survey courses designed to acquaint the member with the material of a field and the basis on which these objects are evaluated.

Organized discussions about folk art that would be available to groups of New York area school children.

Concert series that survey regional folk music.

Collector's clinics.

Tours of major collections in the area.

The Board would like to hear from you regarding your preferences as to which of these proposals be first implemented, as well as your evaluations of the service presently performed by the Museum.

We are seeking to expand the Board of Trustees and ask that you come forward with any suggested candidate you believe are appropriate as well as your reasons for recommending these persons.

We intend to hold a spring party for the Museum for which we will soon be sending out invitations to all members. We are also planning an auction of folk art material to benefit the Museum.

We welcome your suggestions on these matters.

Submitted respectfully for the Board, Barbara Johnson, President

ACTING DIRECTOR'S REPORT Introduction: As the Museum seeks to increase its services to the membership and the public, operating costs continue to soar. The problems in financing a cultural institution have become well-known. Though the Museum operated on a deficit budget in 1973, the Board of Trustees and the Director began to build a foundation upon which a well planned fund raising effort for 1974 and the future can be built.

The Trustees have increased in number from nine to fifteen and more are being considered. New trustees are Mrs. James Burke, Mrs. Robert Meyner, Dr. Louis Jones, Mr. Ralph Esmerian and Mr. Lewis Cabot. A larger Board has enabled the trustees to divide into special committees that are working with the Acting Director to plan the Museum's future and deal with the current problems.

The Museum discovered new support from the corporate world. CELEBRATE AMERICA was a program that not only impressed government agencies funding the arts; it opened the door to support from several major corporations. We were pleased to have generous donations from Rockefeller Center, McGraw-Hill, Exxon, and Time, Inc., as well as from I.B.M. This type of response is very encouraging and the Museum looks forward to increased corporate support.

Several Trustees and the Director have contributed time and effort to various movements committed to improving the financial condition of the arts. The Museum was among a handful of institutions invited to Washington to give testimony at the Joint Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on the Arts and Humanities of the 93rd Congress regarding the Museum Services Act. The Museum also advised several foundations on the general needs of art institutions. The Director is currently involved in a lobby supporting New York Governor Wilson's proposed budgetary arts allocation of $30.5 million. This would be a tremendous and vital increase in state funds available to the arts of New York. I urge all members to contact members of the New York legislature asking them to support the proposed $30.5 million budget.

This year, we plan to continue the positive policies of 1973 as well as initiate new ones. It is most important that our members become more involved. The members are the shareholders; the Museum is their asset. In 1974, I would like to see the organization of a functional members committee or organization that would take an active part in making the museum a success.

EXHIBITIONS The year began with OCCULT, the final "grassroots" series exhibition (made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts). All attendance records and shop sales were broken, resulting in a one month extension of the exhibition. Messrs. Herbert Hemphill, Jr. and William Harris assembled an exhibition comprised of voodoo altars, palm readers, witches, as well as carvings and drawings by folk artists concerned with the supernatural.

While the OCCULT exhibition was running, the Museum tried a new idea, having an exhibition at a site outside the Museum. The paintings of J. F. HUGE were installed by the Museum at the South Street Seaport Museum. This show was made possible by a grant from the Lipman Foundation. Jean Lipman wrote a booklet on HUGE that coincided with the exhibition.

The second in a series of five bicentennial exhibitions on the folk art of New York State, METAL OF THE STATE, was a success at both the Museum and later on tour at the Museum Village of Smith's Clove. Mr. Hemphill's fine selection of interesting and unusual pieces coupled with the informative catalog written by Ruth Andrews made a stimulating study of New York's metal folk art. We are grateful to the National Endowment for their support and to the New York State Council on the Arts.

CELEBRATE AMERICA was perhaps the most innovative program this museum or any museum in this area has ever produced. Thousands of visitors in the Rockefeller Center area delighted to music and to the demonstrations of sheep shearing, weaving, wool dying, quilting, as well as blacksmithing, tin painting, coppersmithing, and many other skills that were just a part of the CELEBRATE AMERICA program. The Museum will continue to produce a special CELEBRATE AMERICA program every summer through the bicentennial.

Again, the Museum thanks the New York State Council on the Arts for a grant that made CELEBRATE AMERICA 1973 possible. I would like to thank Rachael Knopf of the Handweaver's Guild who helped coordinate the demonstrators.

In the fall the Museum honored three living American Folk Artists from Louisiana, Bruce Brice, Clementine Hunter, and Sister Gertrude Morgan, William Fagaly, Curator of the New Orleans Museum of Art, with the help of Parrott Bacot, Curator of the Anglo-American Art Museum, and art dealer Larry Borenstein, assembled the exhibition, LOUISIANA FOLK PAINTINGS. Mr. Fagaly also wrote the brochure on the show, which told the interesting stories of the three artists. The National Endowment for the Arts made a grant for this exhibition for which we are grateful.

During the Christmas season, music filled the Museum for MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE. Cigar box fiddles, rare folk harps, and dulcimers, as well as instruments owned by famous folk singers such as the Beers family, Jean Ritchie and Frank Warner were displayed together with beautiful examples of early clarinets, cellos and other classical instruments made by American craftsmen. MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE was made more joyful by a series of concerts and movies. Also on display were several very unusual pieces of folk art, a fiddle shaped weathervane made of wood and a gayly painted carved set of carnival wagons upon which sat individually carved miniature musicians.

111111111111ww"

Artist Bruce Brice, Betty Marks, Whitney North Seymour, Jr., former U.S. Attorney, and Trustees Mrs. Barbara Johnson and Dr. Louis Jones at the opening of "Louisiana Folk Paintings."

EDUCATION The Museum is becoming more and more of a valuable resource by offering classroom and workshop programs. The previous thrust of the museum had been to exhibit folk art and bring it to the attention of those who were unfamiliar with its qualities. Now that other institutions give folk art its due, the Museum has gone several steps further by setting up exhibitions in public areas outside the Museum and by creating an educational program designed to not only teach about the past but to inspire new talents for the future. We are finding new purpose by passing on the skills of the folk artist, be they for needlework, quilting, pottery or stencil painting.

Last fall New York University and the Museum sponsored a lecture course on folk art which, owing to its success, was extended through the current academic semester. Ruth Andrews did an excellent job in designing the course and selecting lecturers. I am eager to see the Museum develop similar programs for the future. There are many exciting possibilities that can come from cooperation between museums and other learning centers.

At the Museum another advancement was made. School children from Our Lady of Lourdes School came to the Museum every Monday for a period of five weeks and were instructed on how to make a quilt. The children were supplied with materials and were instructed by Mrs. Micki McCabe (who also during the year gave lessons for adults).

We became involved with several intern programs, that not only gave students a valuable experience, but proved to be a great help to the Museum. We had one intern from Bennington College and several from a New York High School program called City-As-School. This year we are continuing with these programs and have added one, The Executive High School Internship Program.

I am presently planning a regular schedule of events, including lectures, concerts and workshops. I encourage members to take part in these activities and invite their friends to also become involved (and to join).

STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS At the end of 1973, the Trustees accepted the resignation of Mr. Joseph P. O'Doherty as Director upon the termination of his contract. A Search Committee has been established by the Trustees to find a new director. During the interim, Mr. Bruce Johnson, former Assistant to the Director, has been appointed the Acting Director.

The Director and Trustees regretfully accepted Mrs. Nelle Hankinson's resignation at the end of the year.

She put a great deal of energy and devotion into the Museum and built up the very successful Museum shop.

We take great pleasure in welcoming Mrs. Elizabeth Tobin as the new manager of the shop. She is also assisting the Director in organizing workshops at the Museum and she will be giving a course on needlepoint this spring.

I would like to thank the faithful volunteers who helped make the Museum so successful in 1973. Special thanks are owed to Mrs. Jean Earl, Mrs. Louise Firtell, Miss Lisa and Mrs. Lois Lowenstein and Mrs. Janet Wolyniec who regularly contributed their services. I hope that other members will find time this year to help out.

DONATIONS I would like to thank the following donors who contributed to the Christmas Bazaar: Mr. Gary Cole, Mrs. R. H. Alborn, Mrs. Phyllis Haders, Miss Cordelia Hamilton, Miss Molly Epstein, Mrs. Herbert McAneny, Ms. Helen Fran kenthaler and members of the Board and anonymous donors.

I would also like to thank Mrs. Donald Spence, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Feld, Mrs. Richard Barrett, Mrs. Myra Behringer and Mrs. Janet Wolyniec for their donations of folk art.

PUBLIC RELATIONS In 1973 the activities of the Museum were better publicized than ever before. OCCULT received extensive articles in NEWSWEEK and the NEW YORKER. Museum trustees and personnel were guests on several radio and television programs throughout the year. We were on the T.V. program "What's My Line."

On three special occasions the Museum was on N.B.C.'s TODAY program, which is nationally broadcast. All exhibitions were reviewed by the NEW YORK TIMES, and we were often mentioned in the NEW YORK POST and DAILY NEWS. CURRENT AND FUTURE The Museum is presently featuring two exhibitions: The Edith Barenholtz Folk Art Collection and Paintings

by Herman Arthur Haskins. Presenting two exhibitions within the Museum at the same time is something new and it has worked out very well. Visitors come away with two very distinct folk art experiences, the sculptural 19th century weathervanes and trade signs from the Barenholtz Collection and the attractive contemporary watercolors of Mr. Haskins.

On April 17th the third exhibition in the Museum's bicentennial series, Pottery of the State, will open to members and press. Mr. William Ketchum, Jr., author of EARLY POTTERS AND POTTERIES OF NEW YORK STATE is the guest curator of this exhibition. He is selecting the finest examples of stoneware and redware made in the various pottery centers around the state of New York. We are very grateful to the New York State Council on the Arts for their support of this program.

Summertime is time for CELEBRATE AMERICA 1974. After the overwhelming success of last summer's program, we have gone on to plan summer programs for this and next summer. We will again be cooperating with Rockefeller Center where the programs will be presented. This summer, Ceramics, Railroads and the Sea will be the themes of the displays, demonstrations and other activities. CELEBRATE AMERICA will run during June and early July.

On September 23 the Museum will present a definitive exhibition on hooked rugs, featuring the best known examples of this beautiful folk art.

"Why Not Learn to Write?". The first comprehensive exhibition on calligraphy will open at the Museum on February 3, 1975.

Anyone who has or knows of outstanding examples of hooked rugs or calligraphy that would enhance these exhibitions should contact the Museum as soon as possible.

ELSEWHERE Jean Lipman, trustee of the Folk Art Museum, and Alice Winchester are to be congratulated for the tremendous job they did on the exhibition and catalog THE FLOWERING OF AMERICAN FOLK ART. The exhibition finishes at the Whitney March 24th. It then will be shown at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from April 22nd until June 2nd and then at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco M.H. De Young Memorial Museum from June 24th to September 15th.

Bruce Johnson Acting Director

The Museum of American Folk Art welcomes the following new members: NEW LIFE MEMBERS Lewis P. Cabot Ralph 0. Esmerian Christo Michaelidis NEW CORPORATE MEMBER R. Esmerian, Inc. NEW BENEFACTOR Peter and Helen Bing Mrs. Francis Kettaneh CONTRIBUTING MEMBER Julius C. Stern NEW FAMILY MEMBERS L. Davida Mr. and Mrs. John Falk Barbara L. Sumwalt

NEW FULL MEMBERS Mrs. Sin i Altschul James Barry Myra E. Behringer Mary Randolph Carter Berg Richard A. Biggs Mrs. Charlotte W. Billings Elaine B. Bye James H. Cannon Richard E. Coffey Mrs. M. S. Crane Harris Diamant C. D. Ellis Mrs. Richard K. Falkins Carl Ned Foltz Marjorie J. Griffiths Fred Haight Chaplain Wm. A. Halien Katherine S. Harris Chaplain Wm. Hay nsworth Mrs. Manning W. Heard, Jr. John Taylor Herget Mrs. P. Hluchan Sam & Edys Hunter John Iskrant Dr. Louis C. Jones

Agnes Halsey Jones Anita Kopff Linda Lagerroos Betty Marks Peter Marks Barbara J. Metzger Robert F. Morris Mrs. William E. Morthland Judith Nichols Erna Obermeier Norma E. Pelletier Anthony Santore Leslie Segal Beth Sexton Anita Swerdlick Abe M. Tahir, Jr. Maureen Tansey Cecelia K. Toth Mrs. Irwin Turner Margaret P. Waite Emily Walter Eleanor Waters Joan Pearson Watkins Zerries & Spouce, Inc. Mary Zuk

NEW FRIENDS Susan Curreri Donata A. Delulio Patricia A. Fletcher Haes Hill Virginia Hofmann Nancy Karlins Mr. & Mrs. Steven Kellogg Mrs. H. S. Krzyzanowski Dan Laidley Amelia Lopatin John McQuiggan

Barbara Metzger Ronald J. Merican Herbert Douglas Michelson Mrs. Loretta A. Polo Patricia Shanahan Mrs. R. Shapiro Mrs. Lore Sloane Susan Stachler June Talcott Charles Thomas Mrs. Rita Wilson

LVIRA)Le t L L LIkA-11J1c K ic i LMNU UMKS1Uk

SOME OF THE MANY BOOKS FOR SALE OR AVAILABLE FOR ORDER IN MUSEUM SHOP

SHAKER FURNITURE: THE CRAFTMANSHIP OF AN AMERICAN COMMUNAL SECT

by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews

$ 2.75

THE ABC'S OF CANVAS EMBROIDERY

by Muriel L. Baker

$ 2.00

THE XYZ'S OF CANVAS EMBROIDERY

by Muriel L. Baker

$ 2.00

WILD FOWL DECOYS

by Joel Barber

$ 4.00

AMERICA'S QUILTS AND COVERLETS

by Carleton L. Stafford and Robert Bishop

$25.00

THE INDEX OF AMERICAN DESIGN

by Erwin 0. Christensen

$11.95

QUILTING

by Avery Colby

$12.50

THE ART OF THE DECOY: AMERICAN BIRD CARVINGS

by Adele Earnest

$ 5.00

AMERICAN PAINTED FURNITURE

by Dean A. Fales, Jr.

$33.50

NEEDLEPOINT IN AMERICA

by Hope Hanley

$ 8.95

AMERICAN NEEDLEWORK

by Georgiana Brown Harbeson

$ 8.25

THE STANDARD BOOK OF QUILT MAKING AND COLLECTING

by Marguerite lckis

$ 3.00

THE ORNAMENTED CHAIR: ITS DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA (1700-1890)

by Zilla Rider Lea

$15.00

THE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN COLLECTOR'S HANDBOOK

by William C. Ketchum, Jr.

$ 8.95

EARLY POTTERS AND POTTERIES OF NEW YORK STATE

by William C. Ketchum, Jr.

$10.00

HOW TO KNOW AMERICAN ANTIQUE FURNITURE

by Robert Bishop

$ 4.95

AMERICAN DECORATIVE WALL PAINTING

by Nina Fletcher Little

$ 7.50

AMERICAN BASKETRY AND WOODENWARE

by William C. Ketchum, Jr.

$ 6.95

CELEBRATE AMERICA

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Barbara Johnson, President Stewart E. Gregory, Vice President Ralph 0. Esmerian, Secretary-Treasurer Edith Barenholtz Alice E. Burke Lewis P. Cabot Adele Earnest Marian Johnson Dr. Louis Jones

Nancy LassaIle Jean Lipman Helen S. Meyner Esther Schwartz Richard Taylor

STAFF Bruce Johnson, Acting Director Janet Jakubowski, Secretary Elizabeth Tobin, Manager of Museum Store MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART 49 WEST 53 STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019

ALL GIFTS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE