American Folk Art

For almost 150 years, beginning in the early 18th century, folk art was the dominant indigenous form of painting in the United States, although it was often underestimated and undervalued until recent times.

Portraitists, often self-taught, traveled around the country painting middle-class families.

The names of many of these artists are unknown but some, such as Ammi Phillips (c. 1788-1865), left what are now treasured bodies of work.

Both dogs and cats were regularly portrayed in these family paintings, and they communicate a vivid impression of domestic security and stability in the early years of American settlement.

No longer associated with paganism and the devil, the cat had become a modern symbol of beauty and peaceful civilization.