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Article: Folk Art Acquired; Smithsonian's NMAA Pays $1.4 Million for Diverse Collection
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- January 19, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art has
purchased a large portion of one of the country's principal
collections of American folk art at a price of $1.4 million.
The 378 objects from the New York collection of Herbert Waide
Hemphill Jr. constitute the "quality core" of the Hemphill
collection, "one of the finest in private hands in the United States
today," according to NMAA curator Lynda Roscoe Hartigan.
For many, these works will stretch definitions of what is or is
not folk art, but then definitions vary about what is or is not art,
period.
The Hemphill acquisitions include a vast range of things,
including weather vanes, trade signs, whirligigs, primitive ...