"JUST PLAIN PEOPLE"
ARE STANDING AROUND
BARUCH COLLEGE'S MISHKIN GALLERY

Friday, March 20 - Wednesday, April 22

Don't be surprised to see a farmer in his overalls, a lumberjack, and an Indian warrior with a gun all standing around the Baruch College art gallery. The life-size wooden figures, prime examples of 19th and 20th-century American folk art, are included in "Just Plain People," opening at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery, 135 East 22 Street, on Friday, March 20, and continuing through Wednesday, April 22. Opening reception: Thursday, March 19, 5 - 7 pm.

Some two dozen folk art "people," plus an assortment of toys and whirligigs (wind-driven toys and devices), are part of this exhibition, from the collection of Dorothea and Leo Rabkin. Assembled over a 30-year period, the Rabkin collection of folk sculptures is a gift to the Museum of American Folk Art. This collection reflects the enthusiasm with which the Rabkins have pursued the creations of unknown and untaught American artists. Note: A gallery talk by the collectors at 4 pm on March 19 will precede the opening reception.

Like much of folk sculpture, the figures in this collection embody popular myths and depict American working men and women, as well as other culturally familiar characters. Some began life as store mannequins by which merchants called attention to their wares, others may have belonged to carnivals or served as ventriloquists' dummies. A few were probably whittled as caricatures or to make an explicit social commentary, while other carvings clearly expressed admiration for their subject. Though their creators are largely unknown (except for the most recent figures), all the carvings are unabashedly direct, and all reveal something of the carver's personality and circumstances.

The smaller objects in this collection--the toys and whirligigs--were chiefly created for amusement and play. "Uncle Sam Riding a Bicycle" and "Woman Kicking Cobbler" both provoke merriment.

The great popularity that folk art has recently achieved is historically unprecedented, but the genre received a great boost in the 1930s with the work of Holger Cahill, a pioneering scholar in the field who was involved with several early museum exhibitions of "primitive," or "popular," art. The steady growth in the prestige and value of folk art may have to do with the belated recognition of its essentially democratic character and appropriateness to the American experience.

The Mishkin Gallery is located at 135 East 22 Street. Just Plain People: Folk Sculpture from the Collection of Dorothea and Leo Rabkin at the Museum of American Folk Art can be seen during regular gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 12 noon-5 pm; Thursday, 12 nbon-7pm.
All shows are free and open to the public

Baruch College
17 Lexington Avenue
Box D-0901
New York, NY
1 001 0

© 1998 Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College