AFA Summer 2021

2021 Antiques & Fine Art 65 Halpert and her business records were already of interest to me, having written about a painting by Samuel Jordan bearing one of her gallery labels. 2 (Figs. 5, 5a). After seeing Rebecca Shaykin’s landmark 2019 exhibition Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art (the Jewish Museum, NYC) and reading her book Edith Halpert: The Downtown Gallery and the Rise of American Art (Yale University Press, 2019), I was inspired to visit this archive once again; what a treasure trove it has proved to be. For those of us who covet folk art, or “art in the primitive tradition,” as Halpert once termed it, the files stored in three-ring binders and referred to as notebooks, and the business records kept by the American Folk Art Gallery are especially interesting as they provide a first-hand glimpse into the folk art market in this country in its formative years. As revealed there, the gallery purchased work from up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as California through auction houses, dealers, “runners” (aka scouts), executors of estates, and sometimes directly from family members. Folk art collectors falling on hard times, such as Juliana Force, Isabel Carleton Wilde, and Elie and Viola Nadelman also added to the gallery’s holdings. In the summer of 1931, Halpert drove through New England and Pennsylvania searching out inventory. While in Vermont she claimed to have enlisted the local fire brigade to remove an unusual deer weathervane from a barn. 3 Meanwhile, Cahill ventured as far south as Florida and Tennessee to acquire choice merchandise. To build interest in their stock, the gallery regularly lent inventory to exhibitions, such as the much-lauded American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America, 1750–1900, which Cahill curated in 1932 at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC. The gallery Fig. 3: Masterpieces in American Folk Art, Exhibition Feb. 25–March 22, 1941. First floor, the Downtown Gallery, 43 East 51st Street, NYC. Downtown Gallery records 1824–1974, bulk 1926–1969. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Reel 5654, frame 663. Fig. 4: Museum Collection, American Folk Sculpture . Exhibition, May 14–June 1950, the Downtown Gallery, 32 East, 51st Street, NYC [third location]. Downtown Gallery records 1824–1974, bulk 1926–1969. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Reel 5654, frame 676, Reel 5640, 857–863. Fig. 4a: Unknown maker, Locomotive weathervane, 1840–1860. Sheet zinc, brass, iron, and paint. 54 x 42 x 3 inches. Collections of Shelburne Museum; museum purchase (1950), acquired from Edith Halpert, The Downtown Gallery (1961-1.130). Photography by Andy Duback. This weathervane, purchased by Halpert from the Isabel Carleton Wilde collection had a history of being discovered in Rhode Island (Downtown Gallery records 1824–1974, bulk 1926–1969. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Reel 5563, frame 764–766.) It was sold to Electra Havemeyer Webb, founder of the Shelburne Museum.