The new installation of the Grainger Gallery of Folk Art at the Art Institute of Chicago opened in August 2009 in a renovated gallery space that wraps around the historic Ryerson and Burnham library in the original 1893 building of the museum. Endowed by David and Juli Grainger, the reinstallation of the collection prompted a re-assessment of the museum’s American folk art collection and provided the opportunity for new research and a publication, also funded by the Grainger Foundation. For Kith and Kin is the first publication to document the growth of folk art collecting in Chicago and at the Art Institute during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Over sixty objects are illustrated with short essays accompanying each entry. An essay on the collecting of folk art in Chicago describes the previously unpublished history of the collection’s origins and growth.
