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Art Galleries In New York: Folk Art Museum

Where: 45 W. 53rd St. [map], New , NY, United States, 10019
November 16, 2007 at 10:30 AM | by | Comments (0)

What museum might someday feature your father's collection of toenail clippings?

Our best guess is the American Folk Art Museum in Midtown New York, whose permanent 4,000-piece collection includes a five-foot tower of TV dinner chicken bones all eaten and glued together by the same man, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein.

What is folk art? Well, a lot of it is weird. But it's also endearing. Cobbled together by people with little or no academic artistic training (Von Bruenchenhein didn't graduate high school), nor a desire to emulate fine art (he made paint brushes from his wife's hair), folk art is to high art what Buffalo is to New York City (sorry we can't help it).

Free for children all the time and for everyone on Fridays from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., it's $9 the rest of the time. Like most New York museums, it's closed Mondays.

Related Stories:
· Folk Art Museum [Official Site]
· Art Galleries in New York [Jaunted]

[Photo: Masck]