Lloyd’s Treasure Chest: Folk Art in Focus

Lloyds’s Treasure Chest: Folk Art in Focus is a participatory gallery that offers a trove of folk art to explore.

Temporary, thematic displays are drawn from, and highlight the museum’s permanent collection of folk art, which is the museum’s “treasure.” The permanent collection includes over 136,000 items of folk art from over 100 countries, representing thousands of unique communities of practice and folk art traditions. The collection is too vast to exhibit in its entirety at any one time. When items are not on display, they are carefully stored and cared for in special rooms such as the Neutrogena Vault, which you can view from the Lloyd’s Treasure Chest Gallery.

More than casual viewing, this gallery invites you to contemplate, create, and interact with folk art. You will find some of the concepts that the museum’s staff considers when thinking about, researching, and collecting folk art. These ideas may raise questions. That’s OK! We are always asking ourselves, “What is Folk Art?” There are indeed multiple perspectives. Here, you will have the opportunity to share your ideas of what folk art means.

The gallery is named for Lloyd Cotsen, folk art advocate and collector, and former president and CEO of the Neutrogena Corporation. Together, in 1995, Cotsen and the Neutrogena Corporation donated a collection of more than 2,500 textiles, ceramics, and carvings from all over the world. To display and house the gift, the 8,775 square foot Neutrogena Wing was added to the museum in 1998. The Wing includes the Neutrogena Vault, The Cotsen Gallery and lounge area, and Lloyd’s Treasure Chest.

See What’s on View in the Thematic, Temporary Display. http://www.moifa.org/exhibition/4423/sewing-stories-of-displacement

ONLINE RESOURCES:

Learn About Lloyd Cotsen: “A Tribute in Memory”

https://cotsen.org/about/a-tribute-in-memory/

The Neutrogena Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art

http://collection.internationalfolkart.org/collections/32326/the-lloyd-cotsen--neutrogena-collection

Selections from the Lloyd’s Treasure Chest Gallery

http://collection.internationalfolkart.org/collections/11206/lloyds-treasure-chest-folk-art-in-focus

Neutrogena Wing and Lloyd’s Treasure Chest

http://www.moifa.org/about/our-history/neutrogenawing.html

El Palacio articles:

“Lloyd’s Treasure Chest: Folk Art in Focus”

https://www.elpalacio.org/2017/03/lloyds-treasure-chest/

“A Tribute to a Titan: Lloyd Cotsen’s “accumulations” live on”

https://www.elpalacio.org/2017/09/a-tribute-to-a-titan/

“More Than Doors”

https://www.elpalacio.org/2016/03/more-than-doors/