Folk Art

A new gallery in the DIA’s American Wing highlights the unique beauty and complex stories of American folk art.

Artists without formal training created the paintings, carvings, ceramics, weathervanes, and toys in this gallery. Their works show the playful, inventive, and sophisticated visions of everyday Americans who made art with the tools around them.

The gallery includes paintings that depict the lives of everyday people, sculptural objects rich with cultural memory, and playful inventions by craftspeople who transformed humble materials. The artists worked in different regions across the eastern, southern, and midwestern United States.