The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture - by Carol Crown & Cheryl Rivers & Charles Reagan Wilson (Paperback)

About the Book

New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 23: Folk Art

Book Synopsis

Folk art is one of the American South's most significant areas of creative achievement, and this comprehensive yet accessible reference details that achievement from the sixteenth century through the present. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture explores the many forms of aesthetic expression that have characterized southern folk art, including the work of self-taught artists, as well as the South's complex relationship to national patterns of folk art collecting. Fifty-two thematic essays examine subjects ranging from colonial portraiture, Moravian material culture, and southern folk pottery to the South's rich quilt-making traditions, memory painting, and African American vernacular art, and 211 topical essays include profiles of major folk and self-taught artists in the region.

Review Quotes

"[A] multi-year, multi-dimensional, and unprecedented series." -- Library Journal

"A most welcome addition to The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, which already has become a standard reference work on the American South for general readers and scholars alike." -- Western Folklore

"An enormous amount of information can be found in this well edited, easy to handle book on southern folk art." -- Florida Historical Quarterly

"Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers." -- CHOICE

"This work provides a comprehensive presentation of traditional contemporary folk art in the American South and will help the discipline find a place in American art history. It will be of interest to scholars, collectors, and enthusiasts of Southern art and culture." -- Library Journal

"Will fill a unique niche in any academic reference collection, and will be of interest to artists and collectors alike. Recommended for academic libraries, particularly those supporting 'outsider' or other Southern folk art programs." -- Tennessee Libraries

About the Author

Carol Crown is First Tennessee Professor of Art History at the University of Memphis and editor of Coming Home! Self-Taught Artists, the Bible and the American South.
Cheryl Rivers, an independent scholar living in Brooklyn, New York, has taught numerous courses at the Folk Art Institute of the American Folk Art Museum and is editor of Donald Mitchell: Right Here, Right Now.