AFA Summer 2021

Summer 42 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com HAPPENINGS Collecting Stories: The Invention of Folk Art Through January 9, 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston, Mass. For information visit mfa.org or call 617.267.9300 Why do we differentiate folk art from fine art? Collecting Stories: The Invention of Folk Art takes on this seemingly simple question by reconsidering works on paper and sculpture from the MFA’s Karolik Collection of American Folk Art. In the 1940s, Maxim Karolik, a Russian immigrant who became an authority on American art, championed including folk art in an encyclopedic museum—shaking up established standards. MFA curators resisted the idea at first, and although they ultimately accepted the value of folk art, they remained reluctant to display it alongside the Museum’s so-called fine art. Today, the MFA commends Karolik’s visionary steps to diversify the MFA collection and to make it more inclusive. Summer Light: American Impressionist Paintings from the Thomas Clark Collection Through August 29, 2021 Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State University, Curtin Road, University Park, PA For information visit palmermuseum.psu.edu or call 814.865.7673 As the days grow longer and the weather warmer, the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State welcomes summer with the first presentation of American Impressionist paintings from a major forthcoming gift. Featuring twenty-four works, this exhibition explores the durability and dissemination of Impressionism in the United States between about 1910 and 1940. The season’s associations with vitality and leisure appealed to a range of artists, including a significant number of women, who painted sun-drenched canvases in the open air. From Maine to Florida, from Texas to California, their bright palettes and broken brushwork rendered all facets of the American landscape and enjoyed popular acclaim. Alice Judson (1876–1948), Summer Day, Gloucester Harbor, ca. 1920s. Oil on canvas, 20 × 24 inches. Collection of Thomas Clark. John Green Satterley, Whirligig: Army Signalman, about 1865–70. Painted wood. Museum of Fine Arts; Gift of Maxim Karolik. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.