One of a series of systematic catalogues of the National Gallery of Art's collection, this comprehensive volume discusses in detail 310 objects that comprise one of the world's outstanding repositories of American naive paintings. Works by renowned folk artists such as Edward Hicks, Erastus Salisbury Field, and Ammi Phillips are represented in depth and placed in stylistic as well as historical context. This catalogue is an indispensable tool for historians of Amerian painting and folk art, and for students of American life and culture. Thorough documentation and commentary are provided for the first time on some of the most intriguing images produced in America in the past two hundred years.