Published in conjunction with the long-term installation Becoming America: Highlights from the Jonathan and Karin Fielding Collection at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Bibliographic Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
Contents:
Director's foreword / Christina Nielsen -- Origins / Jonathan and Karin Fielding -- The old, forever-new things : an introduction to Becoming America / James Glisson -- Forty years in folk art : a conversation with David Wheatcroft / James Glisson -- Early American furniture : its making, its meaning, its pleasures / John Demos -- The kaleidoscope and the fancy style of the early republic, 1790-1840 / Sumpter Priddy -- "Husband every hour" : early American textiles in the Fielding collection / Elizabeth V. Warren -- In imitation of nature : landscape and still-life painting in early America / Stacy C. Hollander -- "The human heart by which we live" : family portraits from cradle to grave / Robin Jaffee Frank
Summary:
"Becoming America offers a multifaceted view of one of the foremost collections of 18th- and 19th-century American folk and decorative art from the rural Northeast. Essays by leading specialists discuss the culture of furniture workshops, exuberant painted decoration, techniques of sewing and quilting, and poignant stories about the families depicted in the portraits. The collection itself includes Shaker boxes, a beaded Iroquois hat, embroidered samplers, metalwork, scrimshaw, handwoven rugs, ceramics, and a weather vane. The majority of these works have never before been published. With lively essays and profuse illustrations, this handsome volume brings to life the aesthetic of early Americans living in the countryside and is an essential exploration of the period's taste and style"--Publisher's description