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Bear and Pears
Bear and Pears
Artist (American)

Bear and Pears

Date1825-1835
DimensionsSight: 33 × 45 in. (83.8 × 114.3 cm)
Object numberN0044.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextIn early and mid 19th-century America, itinerant artists provided rural homeowners with inexpensive painted decoration in imitation of imported wallpaper. Scenic murals were especially popular, as evidenced by this painted fireboard. The unknown painter of "Bear and Pears" decorated several homes in the same manner, including a farmhouse in Lisbon, New Hampshire, a house in Thornton, New Hampshire (the painted walls from which are in the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City), and a house in Norridgewock, Maine.
Exhibition History“American Folk Art: Collection from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris, France, January 25, 2001 – March 24, 2001.

“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum,” The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11, 2004 – April 16, 2004.

“Folk Art and American Modernism,” American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY, July 8, 2015 – October 1, 2015; Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, September 18, 2014 – December 31, 2014.

“The Folk Art Collection of Elie Nadelman: Making it Modern,” Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, Albuquerque, NM, August 11, 2015 – May 6, 2016; New York Historical Society, New York, NY, May 25, 2016 – August 21, 2016; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, September 17, 2016 – December 31, 2016.
BibliographyLefko, Linda Carter and Jane E. Radcliffe. "Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes, 1825-1845." Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2011 page 172.
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5798 STATE HIGHWAY 80
COOPERSTOWN NY, 13326
607-547-1400

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