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Unidentified, Untitled (Swan Decoy from Delaware), ca. 1920, carved wood, 9 × 41 1⁄8 × 7 3⁄4 in. (22.9 × 104.5 × 19.7 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.79
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Artwork Details
- Title
- Untitled (Swan Decoy from Delaware)
- Artist
- Unidentified
- Date
- ca. 1920
- Location
- Dimensions
- 9 × 41 1⁄8 × 7 3⁄4 in. (22.9 × 104.5 × 19.7 cm)
- Credit Line
- The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson
- Mediums Description
- carved wood
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Animal — bird — swan
- Object Number
- 2016.38.79
Artwork Description
The genre of “folk art,” objects and images made by working-class individuals, emerged in the early days of the American republic, with communally trained artisans or craftspeople and work that was often utilitarian or decorative in nature. In the early twentieth century, as folk art become more desirable among collectors, objects such as this swan decoy intersected with the clean, streamlined aesthetic of midcentury-modern art, shifting it from hunter’s lure to sculpture.
(We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection, 2022)
Exhibitions
July 1, 2022–March 26, 2023
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and bold self-definition became major forces in American art. The exhibition features recent gifts to the museum from two generations of collectors, Margaret Z. Robson and Douglas O. Robson.