Collecting Folk Art
by Bob Brooke

In the realm of collecting antiques, there are a lot of cross-over categories. One of these is folk art. Many see it as primitive while others see it as a product of a specific culture or community. Mexican Huichol beadwork is one example. Tramp art is another. But what exactly fits in this category and how does a person go about collecting it? The types of folk art seems endless.

Exactly What is Folk Art?
There many misconceptions about what folk art actually entails. It’s best to begin with what it isn’t. Folk art isn’t mass-produced. While it’s often commercial today, it didn’t start out that way.

In fact, folk art began with a need. In the case of Tramp Art, for instance, men and women down on their luck during the Great Depression fashioned utilitarian objects from scraps of woods and packing crates that they found. They, in turn, sold these items to earn some money. And no two pieces were alike.

Folk art encompasses such universal needs as textiles and costumes, pottery, and furniture, as well as scarecrows and weathervanes.

That’s another thing about folk art. These objects differ from other antiques in that they’re handcrafted by a single artisan or team of artisans. Individuals made each piece by hand, sometimes with training, but mostly by imitating the work of family members or serving as apprentices in small workshops.

Folk art encompasses all forms of visual art as its influenced by folk culture. Generally the objects have some sort of practical utility, rather than being exclusively decorative.

Decorative art experts define folk art as unsophisticated art made by simpler people. The concept of folk art as a category began in the 19th century. It encompasses both folklore and cultural heritage. Historically, most objects have been created and used within a traditional community. Made to fill a need, these objects were shaped by the values and standards passed down from generation to generation.

Most of the time, an individual artisan made an object while working within an established cultural framework using a recognizable style and method. This enabled items to be recognized and attributed to a single individual or workshop.

An artisan’s individual creativity played an important role in preserving traditional forms and motifs. People continued to practice many folk art traditions like quilting and decoy carving, allowing new forms to emerge.

In many cases, folk artists weren’t self-taught. Folk art didn’t aim for individualistic expression. Instead, the concept of group art implied that artists acquired their abilities, both manual and intellectual, at least in part from communication with others.

In communities or groups with strong traditions, the works of different artists were more similar than they were different, more uniform than personal. Tradition in folk art emerged through the passing of information from one generation to another. Through generations of family lines, family members passed down the knowledge, information, skills and tools needed to continue the creation of folk art.

Being part of the community, the craftsperson reflected on the community's cultural aesthetics, taking into consideration the community's response to the handicraft. While an artisan could create an object to match the community's expectations, he or she could also design it to reflect his or her own meaning.

Folk art came in different shapes, sizes and forms. It traditionally used local materials and reproduced familiar shapes and forms. Because it was part of the cultural life of a community, folk art from different communities was different. This makes it easier to identify pieces based on their place of origin, shape, pattern, and decoration.

Folk art wasn’t about individuals creating unique items, but about skilled artisans who demonstrated an exceptional skill, improved over years of practice working in their chosen medium.

History of Folk Art
Folk art had been around long before people created the category in the 19th century.
Before the 16th century, individual artisans, each more or less skilled in their craft, created useful objects that were also beautiful. Woodcarving was especially prevalent, both in England and in Continental Europe.

As the Renaissance dawned, a change happened in the art world. People began to distinguish functional objects from those created within what came to be known as fine art. From the late 15th to the late 18th century the emerging middle class in Europe came into their own and sought ways to display their newly minted wealth and power.

Visual works became known as works of art as opposed to the multitude of beautifully crafted objects created during the Middle ages. Art became exclusive, created by gifted individuals for the limited few. During the Middle Ages, people made the distinction between the practical and the beautiful in the evaluation of crafted products. Art became reserved for the wealthy and everything utilitarian wasn’t considered art. Fine art consisted mostly of painting and sculpture. All other art, including crafts, became primitive art or folk art, implying inferior objects produced by craftsmen rather than artists. This lesser category also included folk art produced in lands outside of Europe where the only works considering were those of the masters.

An earlier, more general understanding of folk art developed in America during the Colonial Revival period at the beginning of the 20th century. Between the decades 1880 and 1940, Americans looked back nostalgically to their rural agricultural beginnings. All things antiquated, handmade, or old-fashioned came into vogue, particularly by the wealthier people along the East Coast. Removed from their original context of production and utility within the local community, these objects were valued as standalone curiosities from an earlier time in American history. Originally called antiques, they became re-labeled as folk art during the first decades of the 20th century by both museum professionals and collectors. Folk became a marketing term intended to separate a commodity from the fine arts above and the antiques below.

Collecting Folk Art
Folk art doesn’t need to be old to be collected. It continues to be handcrafted today in many regions of the world.

If a piece has charm, it has charm. That said, Georgian painted country furniture has perennial appeal, and prices of primitive British rustic furniture, chairs and tables, already highly prized, have risen even more. Once again, there has been strong interest and appreciation of the amazing traditions of folk painted furniture from Europe and a willingness as never before to mix styles and be bold with color.

The demand for painted folk furniture tends to vary with the current trends in interior design. Furniture tends toward basic, repeated shapes, which may be left purely functional but are often extensively carved or painted. It was very popular when first rediscovered in the 1980s and 1990s, then a decade later interiors went minimal and grey, so colorful folk pieces became harder to place. Lately, there has been a new appreciation and interest in folk art and a re-introduction of color into interior design schemes.

Some folk art lends itself well to home decor while other pieces are meant to be collected, displayed, and admired. In metalwork, for example, craftsmen also used the same materials to produce tools and other essentials, as well as such art forms as toleware, or painted tin, incised copper or silver, and even pewter toys.

While folk art may be the umbrella category, there are hundreds of subcategories— painted furniture, laundry beaters, molds, decorated eggs, decoys, powder horns, trade signs, scrimshaw, and ships’ figureheads, and circus wagons, to name a few.

With such a wide variety of folk art objects to choose from, it makes more sense to focus on one or two subcategories when starting a collection. Some items may be easier to display than others. While a collection of Ukranian decorated Easter eggs may not take up much space in a display cabinet, a collection of circus wagons would require a substantial amount of property to display.

What to Avoid
When it comes to folk art that costs a lot of money, like a Welsh lovespoon, there are bound to be fakes, so bear that in mind. Stick to established dealers and pay the higher price.



Ask the same types of questions as if buying a pricey antique. Because many people buy folk art objects online, it’s easy to fake them. Online buying necessitates using photographs to choose an object to purchase. It’s difficult to know if it’s the original paint or if some part of an object is rotten or wormy, or has lots of replaced parts..

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