Look Up! Weathervanes! American Weathervanes: the Art of the Wind
Emelie Gevalt, American Folk Art Museum

The Portland Rooster

Church Banner Artist unidentified Orono, Maine c. 1840 Sheet iron, lead, copper, and blown glass with remnants of an early gilded surface 61 x 74 1/4 in. Private collection Photograph by Ellen McDermott; courtesy Olde Hope Antiques, Inc.

Archangel Gabriel Gould and Hazlett Charlestown, Massachusetts 1840 Gold leaf on iron and copper 28 1/2 x 711/2 x 6 in. Collection of Kendra and Allan Daniel Photograph by George Kamper. www.gkamper.com.
Look up! Weathervanes prompt us to pause, to linger with our eyes aloft. These objects punctuate the routine of daily life with a moment of surprise, dazzling the viewer with a flash of gold or an unexpected shape. In their wide-ranging forms, expressive character, and weathered surfaces, vanes spark the imagination while communicating multiple aspects of their history.
The American Folk Art Museum’s recent exhibition American Weathervanes: The Art of the Winds was the first in more than four decades to highlight the beauty, historical significance, and technical virtuosity of American vanes fashioned between the 18th and early 20th centuries. In this talk, the museum’s Curator of Folk Art Emelie Gevalt will share highlights from the show, which brought together a never-before-assembled group of exceptional weathervanes from private and public institutions. A range of other materials illuminate these weathervanes’ stories, including molds and patterns, advertising ephemera, and exquisite watercolors painted in the early 20th century for the Index of American Design, when weathervanes became central to the burgeoning Americana-collecting movement. Gevalt will contextualize the vanes’ aesthetic beauty with explorations of multiple additional perspectives including the craftsmanship process, scientific analysis, social history, and the history of collecting American folk art.
Emelie Gevalt is the curator of folk art at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. She came to this position from the Art of the Americas department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has served in leadership roles at Christie’s in New York in the Estates, Appraisals, and Valuations department. Gevalt is pursuing her doctorate in art history at the University of Delaware, where she is an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Curatorial Track PhD Fellow, focusing on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art, decorative arts, and material culture.