Somerset County cabinetmaker John Livingston, the maker of this exquisite "Chinese” red three-over-four-drawer chest with stenciled foliate and bird decoration, lived his entire life in Soap Hollow. Collection of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.
:Fanciful utilitarian forms accentuated by a seemingly endless palette of brilliant colors enhancing classic Old World Germanic motifs — these are the hallmarks of a style of highly revered Americana known simply as Pennsylvania folk art. Long associated with and often misattributed to the eastern portions of the state, continued scholarship and a new exhibition sheds new light on the masterful folk designs created throughout Pennsylvania, particularly in the western counties.
"Made in Pennsylvania: A Folk Art Tradition," a comprehensive exhibition organized by the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, explores the folk art of the western regions of the state and examines the similarities and differences, county by county, of the wares produced there from the mid-Eighteenth to the late Nineteenth Century. The exhibition, on view through October 14, brings together almost 400 significant examples, virtually all of which have been loaned from private collections.
The forms range from a simple stoneware jug transformed into a work of art with the stroke of a layman's cobalt-dipped brush to the intricate and colorful hand painted birth, marriage and death certificate fraktur. They speak volumes about the region and its immigrant inhabitants.
With many of the western counties originally settled by Mennonites, the exhibition also marks the contrasting decorative techniques between the communal sects in the west as compared to their more commonly known brethren in Eastern Bucks and Berks County.
Pictorial sampler made at the Mary Tidball School by Leah Young, 1831, Peters Township. Collection of the American Folk Art Museum.
These energetic and sometimes vigorously painted objects, however, are oftentimes perceived in stark contrast to the bland dress and the subtle ways of their Mennonite makers.
"Their personal clothes were drab, it is true," notes J. George Frederick in regard to the Amish and Mennonites in his 1936 book Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery, "but this was the only severe restriction their religions imposed on color, line and form. In fact, this very deprivation had its effect in heightening their interest in color and design in other directions. Instead of decorating their persons, they decorated their household goods."
When the idea for the exhibition was first broached by the Westmoreland, curator Barbara Jones received it enthusiastically, utilizing the thematic classification of "wood, paper, cloth and clay." As the scope of the exhibition grew, so did the four categories, now titled "The Decorative Furniture of Somerset County, Pennsylvania," "Pennsylvania Fraktur," "Western Pennsylvania Textiles" and "Western Pennsylvania's Stoneware Potters." The museum invited four guest curators to cull materials for the exhibition, Charles R. Muller, R. David Brocklebank, Harley N. Trice and Phil Schaltenbrand, respectively. A subcategory of the stoneware exhibit, "Tanware," is curated by Frank and Susan Swala.
