Jacquelyn
Oak passed away on June 1, 2024. Jackie was born on October 7, 1947,
in LaPorte, Ind., the daughter of Dwight David and Elizabeth Oak.
Although
she grew up in Indiana, her mother’s family ties drew her to New
England. After graduating from Lake Forest College in Illinois and
receiving her master’s in art history at Purdue University, she
began her museum career in 1972, working in research, rights and
photographs at Shelburne Museum. Two years later, she became
registrar. It was the beginning of a lifelong fascination with folk
art and folk artists. Helping to coordinate the speakers at a
graduate program series at Shelburne put her in contact with leading
scholars in the field, including Wendell Garett, editor of Antiques;
Jonathan Fairbanks, Museum of Fine Arts Boston; and Peter Mooz,
Bowdoin College Museum. She soaked up the history of the collections
from longtime employees who had worked directly with Shelburne Museum
founder Electra Havemeyer Webb. Before she left Shelburne, she
curated her first folk art exhibition.
After
four years with the Shelburne Museum, Jackie joined the staff of the
Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, Mass., in 1976. For the
next 14 years, she served as registrar, where she worked with the
staff of major national and international museums, small historical
societies and private collectors, while managing a demanding schedule
of changing exhibitions. By the 10th anniversary of the museum in
1985, she had managed loans of more than 5,000 objects, including a
major exhibition from the British Library, Lincoln’s Second
Inaugural Address from the Library of Congress, and a copy of the
Emancipation Proclamation from the National Archives.
Her
love of folk art never waned. In addition to her responsibilities as
registrar, she coauthored an article on folk artist Noah North in
Antiques in 1977. She participated in major folk-art
conferences at Winterthur, Williamsburg and the Fenimore Art Museum
and served as a consultant to the Whitney Museum, Art Institute of
Chicago, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and Genesee County
Museum.
In
1981 she organized “House, Sign, and Fancy Painting” in
collaboration with the Shelburne Museum and published two articles,
“New Discoveries in House, Sign, and Fancy Painting” in Clarion and “American Folk Portraits in the Collection of Sybil B. And
Arthur B. Kern” in Antiques. During planning for a
comprehensive exhibition of Noah North in 1982, the discovery of a
painting signed by M.W. Hopkins forced a reappraisal of works
previously attributed to North and paved the way for an entirely new
way to look at folk artists of the 19th century. Jackie brought an
attention to detail, relentless research and an innovative social
history approach to what became a groundbreaking study of Hopkins and
North. “Face to Face: M.W. Hopkins and Noah North” opened in 1988
at the Museum of Our National Heritage, accompanied by a scholarly
catalog, and traveled to the Strong Museum in Rochester, N.Y.; the
New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown, N.Y.; and the
Museum of American Folk Art in New York City.
In
1990 Jackie returned to Vermont to establish a museum consulting firm
but found it necessary instead to return to Indiana to care for her
aging parents. When she returned to Vermont, she reconnected with
Shelburne Museum and worked as manager of photographic rights and
reproductions, while continuing to teach classes on American folk art
and serving as a guide at the museum from 2007 until 2024. For the
past 12 years, she served as a guest curator at the Fenimore Art
Museum in Cooperstown, where she initiated and curated “Artist and
Visionary: William Matthew Prior Revealed,” the first exhibition
devoted solely to this important artist, in 2012. The exhibition
traveled to the American Folk Art Museum in 2013. Jackie also curated
“A Perfect Likeness: Folk Art and Early Photography” for the
Fenimore Art Museum in 2014. At the time of her passing, Jackie was
working on “The Art of Reform,” a major exhibition on American
folk artists and their involvement in social and religious reform
movements.
Jackie
combined her connoisseurship of folk art with a passion for local
history, newspapers and documents. She loved spending time in the
small villages of New England and along the Erie Canal, where her
painters and their subjects lived and worked. Shelburne Museum
remained a very special place for her. She continued to share her
enthusiasm for the collections, working as a guide at the museum more
than 50 years later.
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2024.