The Milwaukee Art Museum is currently hosting ‘Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art,’ a comprehensive exhibition that celebrates the power, beauty, whimsy and wonder of American folk art. The show presents nearly 600 works by folk and self-taught artists who created art that was influenced by their communities and cultural traditions, rather than established art movements.

‘Uncommon Folk’ includes American paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, textiles, furniture, and decorative arts by folk art luminaries such as Grandma Moses, Howard Finster and Sister Gertrude Morgan. All of the works on view belong to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection. The institution began collecting the work of folk and self-taught artists in the early 1950s after receiving two paintings by the Wisconsin-based artist, Anna Louisa Miller. During the 1960s and 1970s, when very few American museums were acquiring folk art, the Milwaukee Art Museum continued to acquire non-academic art through purchases and generous bequests.

Daniel Keegan, the director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, said, “The exhibition highlights the breadth and depth of the Museum’s world-class collection of American folk and self-taught art, from paintings and photographs to walking sticks and quilts. This eclectic grouping of American folk and self-taught art is a demonstration of the Museum’s long history of collecting works by untrained creators.”

‘Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art’ will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum through May 4, 2014.