Tambourine Flower
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1930
Paint on tin
10 x 27 in.
Photo by Gavin Ashworth

American Folk Art Museum, gift of Nancy Karlins Thoman in memory of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., 2012.9.1
The history of this unique embellished tambourine is obscure, though the percussion instrument itself is American-made and dates to around 1930. It is ringed by cut-tin petals with scalloped edges that have been pierced with stars and crosses and painted with flowers and leaves. The petals are hinged so that they fold onto the tambourine when not in “bloom.” This act of folding and unfolding may be related to a musical performance format of the period. This was the height of burlesque, for instance, which often involved coquettish hiding and revealing.

The Who
James Lloyd (1905–1974)
Great Britain
1970s
Gouache on paper
21 3/4 x 15 1/2 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Helen and Jack Bershad, 2012.20.9
Photo courtesy Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia

Before he started making art in a dedicated fashion, the English artist James Lloyd worked variously as a farmer, laborer, bus conductor, and policeman, among other occupations. In 1964 he became the unlikely subject of a television documentary by filmmaker Ken Russell, The Dotty World of James Lloyd. The title referred to the painstaking pointillist technique that Lloyd devised after realizing that reproductions of his favorite paintings by such artists as J.M.W. Turner and John Constable were composed of tiny dots of color in the chromolithographic printing process. He developed his own method of minute dot painting using brushes with just a few hairs to make verdant scenes of his English countryside and rural life. Working at his kitchen table, surrounded by his large family, Lloyd joyously and meticulously recorded the nostalgic themes that were significant to him. In this example, though, the artist celebrates the famous rock band The Who through his almost obsessive accretion of depth and texture through hand-stippling.

Nazareth
Perley M. Wentworth (?–c. 1960)
California
c. 1950s
Crayon, pencil, gouache, and watercolor on paper
18 x 24 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Helen and Jack Bershad, 2012.20.1
Photo courtesy Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia

This mysterious drawing is typical of the mystical ambiguity Perley M. Wentworth endowed to the forty or so drawings that are known. The depiction bears some resemblance to renderings of the biblical city Nazareth, and one might conjecture that it is Jesus who is emerging from the imposing structure in fluttering white robes. Such religious themes are prevalent in the drawings that sometimes have didactic titles or texts, and often the word “imagination.” The mediumistic quality of the drawings is sympathetic with the artist’s reported process of gazing at the night sky and transcribing the images that came to him; on some of the drawings Wentworth recorded the time and day that the visions came to him. The artist himself remains as elusive as the meanings of these apocalyptic works that he created in California during the 1950s. Around that time Wentworth introduced himself to Dr. Tarmo Pasto, the psychologist who first brought recognition to the work of Martín Ramiréz. Pasto collected Wentworth’s drawings, and much of what we know about the artist today stems from their conversations. It is believed he may be the Perley Meyer Wentworth whose name appears in the Oakland telephone directory between 1955 and 1959 and who died around 1960.

Game Board
Artist unidentified
United States
1889
Reverse painting and patterned foil on glass, in wood case
22 x 22 1/8 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Susan and Laurence Lerner, 2012.15.8
Photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York

This beautiful checkerboard is reverse-painted on glass with a number of motifs that locate it within the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Quarter-fans, flowers, and butterflies relate strongly to the types of Japanese design elements seen broadly across the decorative arts especially following the appearance of the Japanese Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. The shield of the United States, too, suggests it belongs to this era of strong patriotic feeling as the country celebrated its one hundredth birthday. It coincides with the height of popularity of the artform known as tinsel painting, which was practiced primarily by women and typically featured floral imagery. The game of checkers, itself, has ancient roots. “American” checkerboards had eight squares across, as opposed to the Canadian draughts, which typically had twelve squares.