Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists takes a critical look at the historical definition of the “self-taught artist” in the United States from the early twentieth century to today. This exhibition examines how artists without academic training have depicted themselves, on their own terms, through the lenses of self-portraiture, alter egos, and autobiography.
Valérie Rousseau, Curatorial Chair and Senior Curator of 20th-Century & Contemporary Art, and Suzie Oppenheimer, Ponsold-Motherwell Curatorial Fellow and Research Associate, will lead a walkthrough of the exhibition in dialogue with one another. Together, the co-curators will highlight drawings, paintings, sculptures, films, and notebooks on view in the gallery and explore how artists conceptualized and represented themselves over the last century.
This program offers a unique opportunity to witness the diversity and depths of the Museum’s collection while looking into the entwinement of creative agency and conceptions of the self.
About the speakers
Valérie Rousseau, Ph.D., is Curatorial Chair and Senior Curator of 20th-Century & Contemporary Art at the American Folk Art Museum, New York. She overviewed critically acclaimed exhibitions, notably When the Curtain Never Comes Down (AAMC Award, 2015), Art Brut in America: The Incursion of Jean Dubuffet (2015), Photo|Brut (2021), Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered (2022), as well as projects on the concomitance of psychiatric and artistic avant-gardes (Francesc Tosquelles, 2024), neurodiversity (IMLS, 2024–2026), the intersections of folk art and art brut (Cahiers du Mnam 166, 2023–2024), and artists William Edmondson, Auguste Forestier, Eugen Gabritschevsky, Bill Traylor (FILAF Award, 2018), and Madalena Santos Reinbolt (ARTnews Award nomination, 2025).
Suzie Oppenheimer is the Ponsold-Motherwell Curatorial Fellow and Research Associate at the American Folk Art Museum, New York. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the City University of New York, Graduate Center, where she researches art of the hemispheric Americas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has held curatorial positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, and has taught as an adjunct lecturer across the CUNY colleges. Her curatorial projects have included Eleanor Antin: Time’s Arrow (2020) and Pope.L: The Escape (2018). She has presented her research at the Institute of Fine Arts–Frick Symposium, the Yale University American Art Graduate Symposium, the College Art Association conference, and the International Nineteenth-Century Studies Association conference.
Images
Left: Bill Traylor (1853, near Pleasant Hill and Benton, Alabama–1949, Montgomery), Untitled, 1939–1942, Montgomery, Alabama, Poster paint and graphite on cardboard, 10 3/4 x 15 in., American Folk Art Museum, New York, Gift from the Estate of Lanford Wilson, 2022.24.1, image courtesy Ricco/Maresca
Middle:. John Kane (1860, Scotland–1934, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), John Kane and His Wife, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, c. 1928, Oil on canvas, 23 x 23 1/2 in. Collection of Frank S. Tosto Photo courtesy Kallir Research Institute, New York
Right: Lee Godie (1908, Chicago, Illinois–1994, Plato Center, Illinois), Untitled (‘Lee in a large hate.’), Chicago, Illinois, 1970s, Ballpoint pen on photograph, 5 x 3 3/4 in. American Folk Art Museum, New York, Gift of Charles B. and Janice M. Rosenak, 2024.14.1
Registration
Space is limited; advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.
Instructions for joining with a Zoom link and password will be provided by email upon registration confirmation under “Additional Information.”
For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.Closed captioning will be provided in English.