On this Screen: Interview with Chuck and Jan Rosenak February 20, 2009

The Rosenaks, ready for their interview

Here at the Luce Foundation Center we love using technology to add to our visitor's experience of the 3,400 objects housed here in visible storage.

For a while we've been showing a series of short films in which various artists, including William Christenberry, Grace Hartigan, and Luis Jiménez, discuss their work. Visitors to the Luce Center can find these films playing on a plasma screen near the entrance to the Luce Center. We hope that images and discussions of the artworks will entice visitors to go up to the two mezzanine levels and inspect the objects themselves. A few months ago Chuck and Jan Rosenak, major collectors of contemporary folk art and donors to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, noticed this new addition to the Luce Center. They realized they could use the medium to pass on their considerable knowledge and suggested we film them speaking about some of the objects they have donated.

Six objects were selected from the Luce Center's folk art collection and the interviews commenced. They evolved into a series of informal discussions that touched on Chuck and Jan's reasons for collecting contemporary folk art, personal recollections of the artists, and some humorous anecdotes about certain acquisitions. In one of my favorite stories Chuck described a rather unusual way of doing business with the Reverend Howard Finster:

I said, Howard, will you sell me any of these paintings? And he thought about it and then asked me if I'd ever been baptized. I said, "No, frankly Howard I never have been." Well, he had a creek flowing through the bottom of his garden and in this little creek there were a couple of ducks and a sign that read "River Jordan." So I said to Howard, "Well you can baptize me right now," so I rolled up my trouser legs and I got in the creek and he baptized me. When I got out, Finster clapped his hands three times and said, "Now brother Chuck—lets get down to business!"

The footage from the Rosenak interview is currently being edited and will soon be playing in the Luce Center on the third floor of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the meantime, why not stop by and see the twelve artist interviews already playing which are, handily enough for those out of town, also available on our Web site.

• Folk Art, Art Collectors, Chuck Rosenak, Jan Rosenak, American Art,
  Smithsonian American Art Museum