Folk Art Gallery
ABOUT THE GALLERY
The LSU Museum of Art’s Folk Art Gallery spotlights the work of self-taught American artists drawn from several distinguished collections. The gallery's centerpiece is a one-year loan of six artworks from the American Folk Art Museum in New York — featuring works by Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Tolliver, David Butler, Sam Doyle, Purvis Young, and Mary T. Smith — made possible through Art Bridges' Partner Loan Network (PLN). Established in 2017 by philanthropist Alice Walton, Art Bridges is a nonprofit arts foundation dedicated to expanding access to American art. The Art Bridges’ Partner Loan Network supports museums in lending and borrowing works from one another’s collections, activating objects that might otherwise remain in storage and increasing public access through exhibitions and community-centered programming.
In addition to the exhibition, a required PLN component is a robust educational and community engagement plan, ensuring that each loan is accompanied by meaningful interpretive programming that deepens audience connection and broadens the impact of the artworks on view. In support of this effort, the LSU Museum of Art has been awarded a $25,000 Learning and Engagement Grant from Art Bridges to expand arts-based wellness and community engagement programming inspired by the artists on view. The grant supports five interconnected programs running from September 2026 through April 2027, including Art Break at the Museum, LSU campus outreach programs, hospital-based artmaking experiences through Baton Rouge General's Arts in Medicine Program, Tiger Chill Nights for LSU students, and Educator Chill Nights for K–12 and university educators. Below is a list of upcoming Art Break programs inspired by works in the Folk Art Gallery.
These initiatives reflect growing recognition of the role art can play in fostering creativity, connection, reflection, and personal well-being. Collectively, the programs will provide free, hands-on programming designed to support emotional well-being and reduce barriers to arts participation, serving communities across the Baton Rouge area.
The Folk Art Gallery will be on view beginning June 30, 2026.
Artists represented in the American Folk Art Museum loan (image gallery above) include Jimmy Lee Sudduth (Alabama, 1910–2007), Mose Tolliver (Alabama, 1925–2006), David Butler (Louisiana, 1898–1997), Sam Doyle (South Carolina, 1906–1985), Purvis Young (Florida, 1943–2010), and Mary T. Smith (Mississippi, 1904–1995).
ADDITIONAL LOANS ON VIEW IN THIS GALLERY
Also featured in the gallery are several works by artist, activist, and minister Dr. Charles Smith (b. 1940), drawn from a recent transfer of fifteen sculptures from the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Inc., in Biloxi, Mississippi. Originally part of Dr. Smith’s complex outdoor visionary environment of hand sculpted and painted concrete, metal, and found-object constructions at his home in Aurora, Illinois, which he coined the African American Heritage Museum, the works were in danger of being destroyed when the artist moved to New Orleans in 2001 to care for his mother. Recognizing the need to preserve Smith’s art, which illustrated the events, places, and people of the Black diaspora, the Kohler Foundation, Inc. stepped forward to save over 500 objects by placing them in nineteen organizations across the United States, including the Hilliard Art Museum in Lafayette. Eventually their holdings were relocated to Biloxi. The LSU Museum of Art is delighted to bring the objects back home to Louisiana, where the artist currently resides.
Rounding out the gallery are artworks on long-term loan from entrepreneur and collector Doug McCraw of Birmingham, Alabama, including a monumental painting by Purvis Young, a metal sculpture by Richard Dial, and a work by Ronald Lockett. Additional loans from the collection of Wyatt and Becky Collins of New Iberia, Louisiana, include a painting with found objects by Mary Proctor, two bottlecap assemblages by Mr. Imagination, a small whirligig by James Harold Jennings, a mud painting by Jimmy Lee Sudduth, and ceramic face jugs and tabletop sculptures primarily created by North Georgia potters. The exhibition also includes paintings by Louisiana artist Clementine Hunter from the LSU Museum of Art’s permanent collection and a large drawing by Thornton Dial, recently donated by Winifred and Kevin P. Reilly.
LSU Museum of Art Awarded $25,000 Grant from Art Bridges to Expand Community Wellness Programming Inspired by Upcoming Folk Art Gallery. The Folk Art Gallery at the LSU Museum of Art will feature works on loan from the American Folk Art Museum in New York through Art Bridges’ Partner Loan Network. Read this press release to learn more.