Andras Kalman
There is so much humbug shown in galler- ies and opinionated humbug written about contemporary art that I, who run a gallery of 20th-century art, find refuge, solace, humour and total visual satisifaction in what is called naive art. Folk art would be a better name. I mistrust most naive art of today — as everyone is too 'knowing' and the paintings often resemble tourist souve- nirs. The itinerant artists in the days before photography who painted prize-winning pigs, bulls, sheep, children with their dogs or pets, were genuinely innocent and the results 100 years later look crisp, fresh, devoid of bravura and often very amusing. The grand families of England could invite Holbein, Canaletto or Rubens to paint for them; but a farmer, innkeeper, parson or a prosperous merchant also had some art provincial art perhaps, but what's wrong with a lovely, small, unspoilt provincial market town or a painting depicting it? Academic art is mostly predictable; true folk art surprises.
I have collected folk paintings, old shop signs, samplers and wool pictures for 30 years to saturation point. Our dining- room, hall, bedroom, is full of them; in the sitting-room we have moderns. The satura- tion problem has just been . solved by having opened a small, I think the first, Museum of English Naive Art (1750-1900) adjacent to the Huntingdon Centre in Bath. If this seems like a plug the riposte is, 'Well, nothing there is for sale.'
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