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Exhibitions

Why did it take so long to recognise the worth of British folk art?

The Tate’s new show of Brobdingnagian shop signs, evocative stitchery, glorious figureheads from ships and collaged pictures is both timely and hideously overdue

2 August 2014

9:00 AM

2 August 2014

9:00 AM

British Folk Art

Tate Britain, until 31 August

Keith Vaughan in Essex

The Fry Art Gallery, Castle Street, Saffron Walden, until 14 September

British folk art has been shamefully neglected in the land of its origin, as if the popular handiwork of past generations is an embarrassment to our cultural gurus and the kind of supposedly hip commentators who sneer at morris dancing. Last May I reviewed the archive display at the Whitechapel Gallery of Black Eyes and Lemonade, which re-visited the 1951 Whitechapel exhibition of the same name, a survey of vernacular art in Britain curated by the artist Barbara Jones; but that show, more than 60 years ago now, was probably the only specifically folk art exhibition in a major museum...

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