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In August, the work of several Minnesota artists will go on view in the nation’s capital. The exhibition “State Fairs: Growing American Craft” opens Aug. 22 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
“Minnesota inspired the entire exhibition idea,” says Mary Savig, the head curator of the Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum dedicated to craft and decorative arts.
Savig is from Mankato, Minn., and her mother grew up on a dairy farm in Tyler. Her youth, she says, is full of memories of attending the Minnesota State Fair, as well as county fairs and the Taste of Minnesota.
“I loved it all,” Savig says. “We developed the entire project to really survey and cover the full national history of state fairs in a broader context of American art and culture, but Minnesota started it and so Minnesota is, of course, very well represented in the exhibition.”
Savig says it the first major exhibition to survey the unique arts and crafts cultivated by American state fairs, from the 19th century to the present.
In addition to many artworks from Minnesota, the Renwick Gallery will display the famous size 96 “Big Tex” boots from the State Fair of Texas, a life-size clay John Deere tractor model by Arizona-based artist Margarita Cabrera, a life-size butter cow from Iowa sculptor Sarah Pratt and many more works from artists across the country.
Seeding the Smithsonian
A significant portion of the exhibition is Minnesota crop art. Front and center is the promotional image: A crop art work by Minneapolis artist Liz Schreiber.
The Smithsonian commissioned Schreiber to make the piece. It will appear on display in the Renwick Gallery and on the cover of the exhibition catalogue, as well as on tote bags, t-shirts, scarfs, magnets and postcards.
To research the exhibition, Savig returned to the Minnesota State Fair in 2023, the same year Schreiber made the commemorative poster for the fair.
“That poster has lived in our offices here at the museum for some time,” Savig says. “I did wonder if Liz would be able to design our cover in a similar way, because I just thought: The poster for the Minnesota State Fair, it’s just so beautiful. It’s so perfect for this idea of connecting agriculture to American art.”
Schreiber, who is considered one of the leading figures in crop art, accepted the commission last winter.
“I kind of flipped out when I got this email,” Schreiber says. “I mean, I grew up in Virginia going to those museums, so it’s extra, extra exciting for me, because a huge part of my upbringing was being able to hop on a train and go into the city and go see all that stuff.”
Schreiber says the Smithsonian team had specific ideas for the artwork’s imagery, including blue ribbons, roosters, corn, a butter cow and spinning wheels.
“They really wanted the butter cow,” Schreiber says. “They really wanted to promote the textile area of craftwork and more, a lot of times, female-driven stuff like quilt making and sewing and spinning.”
Schreiber only works with the natural colors of seeds and plant matter (rather than painting them), so the blue ribbons posed a challenge.
“There are no real true blue seeds,” Schreiber says. “I wound up using tiny little [forget-me-not] flower petals that I cut out one by one for the blue ribbons.”
Savig says there will be a gallery dedicated to crop art, including several pieces by the “Seed Queen” herself, Lillian Colton, who died in 2007 at the age of 95, and by her daughter, fellow crop artist Linda Paulsen. Savig visited the Paulsen home in Owatonna to see the work in person.
“We put together a group of celebrity portraits, which is something they were both very well known for,” Savig says. “The very first portrait is Richard Nixon. That was the first portrait that Lillian Colton made in 1969 that revolutionized the category of crop art and kind of turned it down this pop-culture track that makes it so popular today.”
Savig says many presidential portraits by Colton and Paulsen will be on view — including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama — because the exhibition coincides with the 250th anniversary of the United States.
There will also be Colton’s portraits of Prince, Willie Nelson, Andy Warhol, Barbra Streisand and Elvis. And on display: Paulsen’s portraits of Dolly Parton, Betty White, Taylor Swift and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Beyond Crop: From textiles to rosemåling
Minnesota’s representation at the exhibition goes beyond crop art.
The Minnesota Historical Society loaned the 1965 butter carton dress and capelet designed by Wilma Ryan and worn by Princess Kay of the Milky Way Mary Ann Titrud.
MHS also provided “27 Bones,” a pair of lace gloves decorated with skeleton hands by Minneapolis-based historic clothing designer Kathleen Richert. The gloves were on view at the Minnesota State Fair in 2001.
There will also be “The Farmer’s Daughter’s Yggdrasil (Tree of Life),” a Norse mythology-inspired tapestry by Minneapolis artist Robbie LaFleur. In a December blog post, LaFleur recounted that she submitted the piece in 2019 to the Minnesota State Fair’s fine art competition.
“It didn’t make the cut,” LaFleur writes. “I was sad about that rejection, but quite happy to display it in the weaving category in the Creative Activities Building, where it received a blue ribbon and was viewed by thousands of fairgoers — including Mary Savig.”
The piece is an homage to LaFleur’s father and grandfather, who farmed potatoes in the Red River Valley.
“A bumper crop harvest of potatoes in 1952 helped her father build the family home,” Savig says. “It's a beautiful tapestry. She uses this open-warp technique that was advocated by this Norwegian weaver named Frida Hansen.”
Savig also chose “Tine,” a piece by Ronna Thorson, an Edina-based artist who works in the Scandinavian decorative folk art tradition of rosemåling. A “tine” is a traditional Norwegian lunch box.
“One goal of the exhibition, more broadly, is to show these regional and cultural traditions that are part of a state's unique immigration histories. So in Minnesota, we have this Scandinavian technique,” Savig says.
What about butter?
While no Minnesota butter sculptors will be represented in the exhibition, Minnesota butter will make an appearance.
Savig says they have received 800 pounds of butter from Associated Milk Producers, Inc., a co-op in New Ulm, which provides the butter for the Princess Kay of the Milky Way busts at the Minnesota State Fair and for sculptors at the Iowa State Fair. (The 2002 Princess Kay of the Milky Way, Sarah Olson Schmidt, is vice president of marketing at Associated Milk Producers, Inc.).
The Smithsonian chose Sarah Pratt, the head sculptor of the Iowa State Fair’s annual butter cow, to create the cow for the exhibition.
“I know it’s very controversial,” Savig says of not choosing a Minnesota butter sculptor. “It was very hard to decide who our butter sculptor would be.”
“State Fairs: Growing American Craft” opens Aug. 22 and runs through Sept. 7, 2026. Liz Schreiber will attend the opening reception Sept. 18, and at a future date, host a virtual studio tour at her Minneapolis home for the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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