Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Williamsburg, Virginia: American Folk Art from Colonial Times Until Today

The Colonial Williamsburg area of Virginia is well-known for many of its historic attractions that bring both tourists and scholars to the town. A lesser known Williamsburg attraction is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum .

Located at 325 West Francis Street, the museum features an ever changing series of exhibitions with works drawn both from the museum's own extensive permanent collection as well as from other sources.

Folk musical instruments are the highlight of one of the permanent exhibits. Banjos, fiddles and other instruments, dating from as early as the late 1800's, are highlighted in this exhibit. Other permanent exhibits include painted furniture and stoneware. There is also an exhibit that is meant to serve as an introduction to American folk art.

For families, the museum offers an exhibit that was planned with young visitors in mind. The "Down on the Farm'' exhibits features many important pieces of folk art, including weather vanes and wooden horses, and the pieces are viewed by guests as the story of Prince, a wooden dog, unfolds. Another popular permanent exhibit is We The People: Three Centuries of Folk Art Portraits. This exhibit explores how folk art portraits have changed over time.

In addition to the permanent exhibits, the museum offers a wide variety of changing exhibits. These have included Scenes of Every Day Life: The Drawings of Lewis Miller, Seeing Stars in American Bedcovers, which features quilts and other bedding with a star as a dominant design element and Sidewalks to Rooftops: Outdoor Folk Art, which features weather vanes, signs, carousel animals and marine carvings.

The museum, which is named for the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was built in 1957. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was a lover of many kinds of art. In 1929, she was one of three co-founders of New York's Museum of Modern Art .

Upon her death in 1948, she left her collection of folk art to Colonial Williamsburg. In 1957, her husband had the museum built as a memorial to his wife .

The museum also offers a daily 30-minute program that is meant to teach visitors the basics of folk art as well as show how much the museum's collections have grown since the time it first opened.

Admission to the museum is included in the Colonial Williamsburg general admission passes, or admission to the museum can be purchased separately. Because there are many other museums and things to see and do in Colonial Williamsburg, visitors may want to plan on more than one day to be able to see it all.