Color & Shape: Art of the American Theorem

The most popular method of watercolor painting practiced in nineteenth-century America was known as "theorem work," or stencil painting on fabric, paper and light-colored wood. It was used to create decorative pictures and add ornamentation to household objects. Popular in England and Europe as early as 1805, the art form reached popularity in the United States in the 1820s and 1830s. It marked a time of new interest in painting and drawing as essential skills for genteel ladies as well as the temporary decline of needlework as a sign of ladies' accomplishments.

Four of the eleven works on view in "Color and Shape: The Art of the American Theorem" were once owned by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the folk art museum's namesake. Mrs. Rockefeller began amassing her collection of the genre in the late 1920s, a time when few people recognized these works were more than a hobby for the untrained or amateur artists who made them. Guided by early scholars and collectors of folk art, her collected works grew over the next decade to more than 400 pieces, more than half of which later became the basis of the museum. Many of those works were American theorem paintings.

"Color and Shape: The Art of the American Theorem" is co-curated by Laura Pass Barry and Kate Teiken. The exhibition is shown in the Mary B. and William Lehman Guyton Gallery.