Art Review: Shelburne Museum in Vermont

On my way to Montreal — where I am now, to see the retrospective of the work of the Armenian-born, Quebec-raised photographer Yousuf Karsh — I stopped at northern Vermont’s Shelburne Museum. Shelburne, Vt., is south of Burlington, which, with 40,000 people, is the state’s only city. I hadn’t visited the museum for a few years. Vermont is a tiny place, but it’s a gradually widening string bean, with Shelburne near the top and me at the base, near the Massachusetts border. It’s far.

I spent part of the afternoon there. Shelburne Museum is unique. It’s best known for a superlative collection of folk art. Its founder, Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888–1960), was one of the pioneer collectors of American paintings by itinerant artists, textiles, duck decoys, furniture, carriages, cigar-store Indians, and, really, all crafts and accoutrements of everyday life from colonial to Victorian times.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

On my way to Montreal — where I am now, to see the retrospective of the work of the Armenian-born, Quebec-raised photographer Yousuf Karsh — I stopped at northern Vermont’s Shelburne Museum. Shelburne, Vt., is south of Burlington, which, with 40,000 people, is the state’s only city. I hadn’t visited the museum for a few years. Vermont is a tiny place, but it’s a gradually widening string bean, with Shelburne near the top and me at the base, near the Massachusetts border. It’s far.

I spent part of the afternoon there. Shelburne Museum is unique. It’s best known for a superlative collection of folk art. Its founder, Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888–1960), was one of the pioneer collectors of American paintings by itinerant artists, textiles, duck decoys, furniture, carriages, cigar-store Indians, and, really, all crafts and accoutrements of everyday life from colonial to Victorian times.