Point of View: American Folk Art from the William and Ann Oppenhimer Collection October 12 to December 16, 2001 Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums With our car full of Finster's small cut-outs, scrap art, gourds, and mirrored boxes, we drove away, and our lives have never been the same. - Ann Oppenhimer On October 12, 2001, the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums, will open the exhibition Point of View: American Folk Art from the William and Ann Oppenhimer Collection. This exhibition will feature more than 85 works of art by fifty artists collected over the past thirty years by this Richmond couple, who also started the Folk Art Society of America and who publish the Folk Art Messenger. The exhibition opening corresponds with the fourteenth annual Folk Art Society of America's conference, which is being held in Richmond this year from October 11 to 14. The three-day conference will include prominent speakers from the field of folk art scholarship and collection as well as tours of private and public collections in the region. Registration is required to participate; please contact the Folk Art Society of America at (804) 285-4532 or 1-800-527-3655, or see their website at www.folkart.org. However, the exhibition's opening reception, which inaugurates the conference, and the symposium, are free and open to the public.
The exhibition opening corresponds with the fourteenth annual Folk Art Society of America's conference, which is being held in Richmond this year from October 11 to 14. The three-day conference will include prominent speakers from the field of folk art scholarship and collection as well as tours of private and public collections in the region. Registration is required to participate; please contact the Folk Art Society of America at (804) 285-4532 or 1-800-527-3655, or see their website at www.folkart.org. However, the exhibition's opening reception, which inaugurates the conference, and the symposium, are free and open to the public. Point of View will include works by the artists Howard Finster, Bessie Harvey, Noah Kinney, Sabinita Lopez Ortiz, and Mr. Imagination, among others. Although the scope of the exhibition is a national one, many Virginia artists' works will be shown, such as art by Patsy Billups (Saluda), Miles Burkeholder Carpenter (Waverly), Abraham Lincoln Criss (Cumberland), John William "Uncle Jack" Dey (Richmond), and Anderson Johnson (Newport News). Ann and William Oppenhimer began collecting folk art after a visit to Miles Carpenter in Waverly, Virginia. Ms. Oppenhimer recalls, "I discovered a wonderful person creating wonderful art, and this was the beginning of many visits to meet other artists and to see the art we came to know as folk art." This meeting sparked the Oppenhimers' collecting fever, and it set the tone for their mission to meet all of the artists whose work they collected. Not surprisingly, they met artists in regions where they were visiting family. In North Carolina they met James Harold Jennings, who lived and worked in five school buses in the town of Pinnacle. In California they became interested in work done at the Creative Growth Art Center, a facility for the physically, mentally, and emotionally disabled in Oakland. Thus, Point of View represents not a national survey of American folk art but a very personalized selection, with a story and a friendship behind each painting,drawing, and sculpture. The Oppenhimers met Howard Finster, perhaps the most well known living American folk artist, in 1982, at his home in Summerville, Georgia. They quickly became, and still are, good friends with this artist, who created portraits of each of the collectors that are included in the exhibition. The impetus to start the Folk Art Society followed a Howard Finster festival at the University of Richmond in 1984, organized by Ms. Oppenhimer. The catalogue, exhibition, workshop, musical performance, lecture series, and other events drew like-minded people who appreciated Finster's work and wanted to pursue their own interests in folk art. In 1987 the society was formed as a nationwide organization that has annual conferences and publishes articles by fellow scholars and collectors in its publication Folk Art Messenger. On view through December 9, 2001, at the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums, Point of View is made possible with the generous support of the University of Richmond Cultural Affairs Committee. The exhibition is accompanied by Point of View: American Folk Art from the William and Ann Oppenhimer Collection, a 72-page catalogue, published by University of Richmond Museums. Co-curated by Ann Oppenhimer, a 1956 graduate of the University of Richmond, and Richard Waller, Executive Director, University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition will tour to the following venues beginning next year: January 19 to March 2, 2002 Longwood Center for the Visual Arts Farmville, Virginia March 25 to May 30, 2002 Terrace Gallery of the City of Orlando Orlando, Florida June 30 to September 29, 2002 Art Museum of Western Virginia Roanoke, Virginia October 17 to December 15, 2002 Sweet Briar College Art Galleries Sweet Briar, Virginia January 31 to April 13, 2003 Contemporary Art Center of Virginia Virginia Beach, Virginia May 28 to August 22, 2004 Morris Museum of Art Augusta, Georgia September 12 to November 14, 2004 Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum Wilmington, North Carolina