A Kind of Archeology: Collecting American Folk Art, 1876-1976
American folk art has been studied exhaustively from the standpoint of the objects themselves, but Elizabeth Stillinger's long-awaited book is the first to take a comprehensive look at the material's earliest collectors and their motivations.... The clarity of Stillinger's writing makes her extraordinary intellectual synthesis not only accessible but appealing to laymen and scholars alike.(Barbara Luck, (from the Foreword))Heavily illustrated and just shy of 450 pages, the book is a sweeping, De Mille-style epic populated by dozens of dealers, collectors, curators and museum directors, many of them remembered for their strident disdain for convention. In her always lucid prose, Stillinger identifies the players and their key contributions to the field's evolution.... It is hard to conceive of a more thoughtful or thorough guide.(Antiques and the Arts Weekly1900-01-00)A masterful overview, A Kind of Archeology offers an enduring contribution to histories of American art. Highly recommended.(Choice)[A Kind of Archeology] is a welcome addition to the literature of American folk art and is highly recommended for art libraries.(Art Libraries Society of North America)Distinguished by its coherent ideas, clear prose, and unusual photographs, A Kind of Archeology is a pleasure to read.(ARTnews)This is a sumptuously illustrated, comprehensive study that will interest art historians, craftspeople, history buffs, and collectors. An Outstanding Title.(University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries)An interesting research-based book that peeps into the glorious past of American folk art, also explores some of its negative aspects.... In fact, going beyond merely encapsulating the timeline of collection and collectors, the art historian has painstakingly pinpointed the fallacies of certain culture culprits in her detailed documentation, based on an extensive research for over a decade and a half.(The Arts Trust)