Americana Insights 2024 - by Lisa Minardi (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A richly illustrated presentation of the latest research on traditional American folk art

Americana Insights 2024 is the second volume of an annual series that presents the latest research and discoveries on traditional American folk art and material culture. This installment explores a diverse range of craftspeople and artifacts, treating readers to a journey from Appalachia to the mid-Atlantic and New England, and even onto the Atlantic Ocean. Each essay offers a fresh perspective on American creativity and ingenuity, introducing readers to the makers and materials of early America. This remains the only interdisciplinary publication devoted exclusively to traditional Americana and folk art.

Contributors cover a range of topics including historic Cherokee river cane basket weaving traditions, New England folk artists Sturtevant J. Hamblin, the almshouse paintings of German immigrant Charles Hofmann, and the display of American antiques on mid-twentieth-century ocean liners. Additional subjects include Pennsylvania German fraktur, carousel carving, carriage signs, quilts, and game boards.

Contributors: Trevor Brandt, Paul D'Ambrosio, Tobin Fraley, Emelie Gevalt, Christopher Malone, Richard Miller, Matthew Monk, Amelia Peck, Christian Roden, Cynthia Schaffner, Eileen M. Smiles, Jennifer Swope.

About the Author

Lisa Minardi is a specialist in the history and material culture of southeastern Pennsylvania. She is the author of numerous publications on Pennsylvania German folk art and has curated more than a dozen exhibitions. From 2006 to 2016 she was an assistant curator at Winterthur Museum, where, in 2011, she co-authored the book Paint, Pattern & People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1725-1850 and helped organize the companion exhibition. In 2011, she also curated the exhibition Pastors & Patriots: The Muhlenberg Family of Pennsylvania at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College and wrote the accompanying catalog. In 2015, she served as consulting curator and catalog author for the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Drawn with Spirit: Pennsylvania German Fraktur from the Joan and Victor Johnson Collection.