Unexpected Eloquence: The Art in American Folk Art

An art collector and dealer by profession, Howard Rose developed a passionate interest in American folk art in the 1960s. Concerned by the lack of serious art criticism on the subject, and disturbed by the condescension with which folk art is generally treated by fine art critics and connoisseurs, in the late 1970s he wrote Unexpected Eloquence, the first chapter of which appeared in Art in America."Just what is the nature of our variant on embellished handicrafts," Rose asks, "that we should explore it for a complexity and ambition which Western cultures have always reserved to the sphere of mainstream art?" In answer, he begins by narrowing the subject to exclude mere Americana and focuses instead on a small but significant body of works with the same set of evaluative measures that are applied to mainstream art. His intent is to discover distinctive aspects of the American experience that might account, beyond individual genius, for these extraordinary achievements. Rose describes a revision of conventional preconceptions about the multi-faceted American heritage, and in doing so he challenges the art establishment and opens up the field to the larger audience of art lovers. Throughout, his writing is elegant, carefully argued, occasionally impassioned. The final chapter, presented as an appendix, details the various conceptual problems in folk art criticism.