Folk Art (Eng. 12)

Finding books: subject searching (s=folk art) Also try related subjects such as outsider art, art brut, and naïve art. Keyword searches of terms such as visionary art and vernacular art will also yield results. Be sure to take note of key authors for your topic and look for other books, exhibition catalogs, or periodical articles by them.

You will also find useful information in the Grove Dictionary of Art Online; look at the entry for Folk Art, where you will find an excellent conceptual overview of the subject and an authoritative bibliography. Also see Outsider Art/Art Brut.

Finding periodical (magazine/journal) articles: you may search Art Full Text. On Art Full text and Art Index Retrospective You can do a subject search using folk art, outsider art, artists, self taught, art brut, or art, naïve. Another resource, America: History and Life, is useful for finding articles in history or folklore/folklife journals. Search using the term folk art. Remember, these indexes are not full text, but provide only a citation to the article or other source.

Full-text, searchable E-journals on the Libraries Web page are also an important and growing feature. Look on the drop-down menu under Art or American Studies or History and you'll find many. In addition, large full-text journals collections such as:

Academic Search Premier
Academic OneFile
IngentaConnect
JSTOR
Project Muse

Basic Reference Sources for Folk Art in Art Reference

Folk Artists Biographical Index. (Art Ref. NK805.F63 1987)
An older work but useful as it has a media index so you can find artists by the medium in which they work. Read the introduction to understand the codes for the book sources.

Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists. (Art Ref. NK 808.R6 1990)

Outsider, Self-taught and Folk Art Annotated Bibliography. (Art Ref. N7432.5 .A78 S455 2002)
A bibliography of books, exhibition catalogs citations for articles, and films and videos on 20th c. artists.

Self-taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources. (Art Ref. NK 805 .S46 2000)
It includes biographical information.

20th century American Folk, Self-taught and Outsider Art. (Art Ref. NK805 .S46 1993)
Another useful work by the author of the two preceding works.

World Encyclopedia of Naïve Art: a Hundred years of Naïve Art. (Art Ref. N7432.5.P7 B54 1984)

Important Folk Art Museums/Web sites and collection catalogs

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum/Collection

American Folk Art Museum
Check online catalog under s=American Folk Art Museum. Also consult its journal, Folk Art (Davis, current and bound periodicals)

Museum of International Folk Art
See print catalogs such as Folk Art from the Global Village, The Spirit of Folk Art: the Girard Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art; and Recycled, Reseen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap and others.

American Visionary Art Museum
This new museum's website includes a good explanation of the distinctions between "folk", and "Visionary or Outsider art".

ARTstor
This database provides curated collections of art images and associated data for noncommercial and scholarly, non-profit educational use.

CAMIO offers rights-cleared, high-quality art images for class projects, art history and studio art programs, course Web sites, lectures, presentations, and research resources.

Intuit: the Center for Outsider Art
A good gateway to information on outsider art.

Ames, Kenneth. Beyond Necessity: art in the Folk tradition. (1977)

Bank, Mirra. Anonymous was a woman: a celebration in words and images of
traditional American art and the women who made it. (1979 and 1995)

Sidney Janis, They taught Themselves; American primitive Painters of the Twentieth Century. (1942) One of the early theoretical works to consider and define folk art.

Maizels, John. Raw creation: outsider art and beyond. (1996)

Manley, Roger. Signs and wonders: outsider art inside North Carolina. (1989)

___________ . Self-made worlds: visionary folk art environments. (1997)

Rhodes, Colin. Outsider art: spontaneous alternatives. (2000)

Weiss, Allen S. Shattered forms: art brut, phantasms, modernism. (1992) Also available online on NetLibrary/E-Indexes Pages.