Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910–1983) Untitled, 20th century (Marie with Flowers in Hair, Cropped at Bust) Hand-colored gelatin silver print 7" x 5" American Folk Art Museum, gift of Lewis and Jean Greenblatt

Portraiture has been among the most persistent genres in art history, whose purpose and meaning changes through cultural context. The exhibition Self and Subject, on view at the American Folk Art Museum from March 16 - September 11, 2005, highlights the contemporary fascination with identity and self-awareness through portraits by self-taught artists.

Mary Maxtion (b. 1914) Snail Trail Quilt, 1990 Boligee, Alabama Cotton 77" x 89.5" American Folk Art Museum purchase made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, with matching funds from The Great American Quilt Festival

The exhibition Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the Collection highlights complex and vibrant quilts, paintings, works on paper, and sculpture by contemporary African American artists. On view from February 8 - September 4, 2005, the exhibition is organized by curators Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson. It explores through the American Folk Art Museum's rich holdings the range of artistic expressions by self-taught African American artists from the rural South and the urban North. Comprising approximately nine quilts and nearly thirty works of art in various media, Ancestry and Innovation includes paintings by an elder generation of creators, such as Sam Doyle, David Butler, Bessie Harvey, and Clementine Hunter; works by contemporary masters such as Thornton Dial Sr., and provocative pieces by emerging artists such as Kevin Sampson and Willie LeRoy Elliot. Juxtaposed with richly patterned and graphically exciting quilts, the exhibition celebrates the ongoing contribution of black artists to the kaleidoscope of American cultural and visual experience.