Art and Craft of American State Fairs, Nineteenth Century to the Present

This panel session will solicit papers on the creative expressions of American State Fairs from their agricultural beginnings in the nineteenth century to the present. Many states began organizing annual agricultural fairs in the nineteenth century to promote farming. Fairs have since grown into grand public gatherings with spirited competitions and demonstrations of crafts. State fairs have profoundly altered the ways artists exhibit their work and engage with the American public.

The panel invites papers on the art, craft, and material culture of fairs. Papers might consider traditional mediums like painting, photography, textiles, and pottery, as well as unconventional mediums like crop art, canning, and butter sculpture. Papers might detail more intimate stories of family and community life that often span generations. Papers might also explore broader creative expressions found on fairgrounds, such as rodeos, pageants, and 4-H displays, or the social production of the actual fairgrounds exemplified by neon and hand-painted signs, parade floats, and colossi like Big Tex’s big cowboy boots. In addition to state fairs, papers can consider county and tribal fairs. We invite reflection on how fairs register shifts in regional art expressions and, more broadly, how fairs help us better understand the formation of identity in American art and culture.

The panel will precede the opening of the exhibition The State Fair at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum curated by Mary Savig and Sara Morris.