Exhibit at Nelson-Atkins celebrates her passion for folk art.
Barbara Gordon fell in love with folk art more than 20 years ago. She began buying it, drawn to the aesthetics, craftsmanship and unique visions of artists with little or no formal training. And after discovering that many of the great collectors of American folk art have been women, she determined to join their ranks.
“A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America,” a nationally-touring exhibit of Gordon’s collection now on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, showcases the results of that quest.
Dating from 1800 to 1925, the exhibit’s 63 works of folk art—still lifes, landscapes, sculpture, and furniture—draw us in for their passion, invention and charm. They also have many stories to tell, offering what Gordon describes as “a window into American life and history.”
What moved you to become an art collector?
I’ve always been an art buff. I took studio courses in school and majored in art history as an undergraduate at Cornell. When I was thinking about graduate school, people pointed out that only three percent of art history graduates get jobs, so I went to law school. I practiced for 16 years and worked in the Justice Department as a litigator.
It was in the back of my mind that I wanted to own art—I have the collector gene. Weschler’s auction house was located one street away from Justice, so I’d go over there to preview or wait for an item.
Was folk art always your focus?
In beginning I bought affordable art, prints by Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. When I was in New York in 1990, I stopped in at Sotheby’s, where they were selling the Bernard Barenholtz collection of antique toys and folk art. I saw that and I was hooked.
What was it about folk art that attracted you?
The colors, the shapes, the story of American history that the objects tell. I was able to combine my love of American history with my love of art.
So you began buying it.
When I start, I’m gung ho, all in; I was getting all the catalogs from Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Americana Auctions. From 1990 to 1995 I was buying on my own. My house filled up quickly, to the point that my husband said, “Barb, we are tripping over this stuff.” I decided to find a great dealer to advise me.
I interviewed Americana dealers and found David Wheatcroft in Westborough, Mass. I invited him to my house to tell me what to keep and what to sell. He came to the house and said, “If you want a great collection, sell it all and start over.” So I did. I wanted to be a great female collector.
How did your approach to collecting change?
I worked with David and he taught me about looking not only at beauty, but rarity, condition, surface. He taught me the one thing that stayed with me and helped me: Stay disciplined. I’ve worked with him for over 20 years and we planned it out carefully.
Is there one piece that really sums up what folk art stands for to you?
“Girl of the Period” has great appeal for me. She’s an independent woman, wearing a magnificent outfit, smoking when it was not fashionable, and it’s carved beautifully. It’s one of my favorites.
Some of these paintings deal with hidden history, or lesser-known chapters of the American story.
Three paintings by John Hilling show an incident that happened when Irish Catholics were flooding the country in the 1830s and’40s. The Old South Church in Bath, Maine, had been rented to Catholics, and an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant group called the Know-Nothing Society set the church on fire. The first painting shows a normal day at 4:30 p.m. In the second, it’s 6:30 p.m., and a speaker begins railing against immigration. The Know-Nothing Society got to the top of the church and put the flag up, and they also started dropping shutters from the church to fuel the fire. By 9 p.m. the church was all in flames. The painter was a fireman and he was there.
Tell me a little about the chase. Is there a piece you went all out for?
During my early collecting when I was on my own, I spotted this “Still Life with Watermelon” at Sloan’s in Washington, D.C. It was not cleaned and not framed. It was just stapled on stretchers. I thought, “I love this painting; I’m going to get it.” But there was another phone bidder and I didn’t get it! It went way over the estimates. I was gratified that at least someone else thought it was good.
At the time, there was no word anywhere about the artist, Daniel McDowell, who was a chair and bench decorator. Years passed, and around 2000, I was looking at the Paleys’ single-owner sale in January at Sotheby’s and there was my watermelon painting! I kept my paddle up until I got it. My daughter is not much interested in my collection, but she did tell me that someday she wants that watermelon painting.
“A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America” continues at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak St., through July 5. Hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Admission is free. For more information: (816) 751¬-1278 or www.nelson-atkins.org
