Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum facts for kids
| Established | 1957 |
|---|---|
| Location | Williamsburg, Virginia |
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum (AARFAM) is a special place in the United States. It was the first museum in the country, and the oldest in the world, to focus only on folk art. Folk art is art made by everyday people, often without formal training. It shows the traditions and daily life of a community.
This museum is located near Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. It started with a collection of art given by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. Her husband, John D. Rockefeller Jr., also helped by providing money. He was a co-founder of Colonial Williamsburg.
Abby Rockefeller's collection helped people see folk art as an important part of American art. The museum first opened in 1957. It has grown and moved several times to hold its expanding collection. Today, it has over 7,000 pieces of folk art. These artworks date from the 1720s to the present day.
The museum has changed its name a few times. It started as the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection. Then it became the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center. Finally, in 2000, it became the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum. It is now located with the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. Together, they are known as the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.
History of the Folk Art Museum
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller loved collecting American folk art. She got advice from art experts to build her collection. In 1932, she secretly loaned some of her art to an exhibition. This show was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was called American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America, 1750–1900.
This exhibition later traveled to six other cities in the U.S. It helped people understand that folk art was very important. In 1935, Abby Rockefeller loaned her collection to the Ludwell–Paradise House in Williamsburg. Four years later, she officially gave the collection to Colonial Williamsburg. It stayed at the Ludwell-Paradise House until 1956.
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller passed away in 1948. Her husband, John D. Rockefeller Jr., decided to create a museum in Williamsburg named after her. In 1956, their son, David Rockefeller, added more art to the collection. These were 54 folk art pieces his mother had given to other museums.
The new museum, called the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection, opened in May 1957. It was in a new brick building. This building was designed in the Georgian/Federal Revival style. It had a lovely oval garden. The museum was just outside the historic area of Colonial Williamsburg.
In 1992, the museum added a large new section. This addition was 19,000 square feet. It included a beautiful garden with a fountain. This expansion helped the museum show more of its growing collection.
In 2007, the museum moved again. It joined the nearby DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. This new location gave the folk art collection 10,400 square feet of space. It had 11 galleries to display the art. The entrance to these museums is quite interesting. You go through an area under the Public Hospital of 1773 building. The original 1957 museum building then became part of the Spa of Colonial Williamsburg.
In 2014, Colonial Williamsburg announced another big project. They planned a $40 million addition to the museum building. This new wing opened in 2019. It made the museum even bigger and easier to enter.
What's in the Collection?
Abby Rockefeller collected 424 art objects between 1929 and 1942. These pieces are still the heart of the museum's collection. Today, the museum has grown to include over 3,000 objects.
After it first opened, the museum added works from other collectors. These included pieces from J. Stuart Halladay, Herrell Thomas, Holger Cahill, Edith Gregor Halpert, and John Law Robertson.
The museum now features many types of folk art. You can see portraits, art from the Southern United States, and African American folk art. There are also sculptures, fraktur (colorful Pennsylvania German folk art), and textiles.
The collection includes famous folk artists. Some of these artists are Eddie Arning, Wilhelm Schimmel, Erastus Salisbury Field, and Edward Hicks. You can also see works by Lewis Miller, Albert Hoffman, Louis Joseph Bahin, and Ammi Phillips. The museum has also shown art by 18th and 19th-century painters. These include Zedekiah Belknapp, James Sanforth Elsworth, and Asabel Lynde Powers.
One important artwork is The Old Plantation. This is an 18th-century watercolor painting. It was created by John Rose from South Carolina.
