This is a survey of nonacademic painters in America, with special concentration on the period following the Revolution to the end of the nineteenth century. Their works have a certain quaintness and nai?vete? which makes them very appealing and they are being enthusiastically collected today. The artists used oil, watercolor, and ink and worked on canvas, wood, metal and velvet. Their subjects included: portraits; landscapes; houses; ships; still lifes; tavern signs; fireboards; and mourning pictures. In Pennsylvania among people of German descent the decorated certificates called Frakturs were very popular. Calligraphic skill resulted in some fascinating designs. Painted faces and hands were inserted in embroidered pictures. Altogether, there is a wide variety with interesting categories from which the collector can choose a specialty. A chapter on the conservation and restoration of old pictures is includes, as well as a bibliography and brief biographies of 94 painters. Selected list of American folk painters: Joseph Badger; S.F.M. Badger; James Bard; William Thompson Bartoll; Ruth Henshaw Bascom; Beardsley Limner; Zedekiah (or Zebakiah) Belknap; John S. Blunt; John Bradley; John Brewster, Jr.; J. Brown; Uriah (or Uriel) Brown; Horace Bundy; James E. Buttersworth; Thomas Chambers; Joseph Goodhue Chandler; Winthrop Chandler; E.C. Coates; William H. Coffin; Michele Felice Corne?; John V. Cornell; Davis, J.A.; Joseph H. Davis; Clement Drew; John Durand; Ralph Earl; Emily Eastman; Moses Eaton, Jr.; A. Ellis; James Sanford Ellsworth; J. Evans; James Guy Evans; Erastus Salisbury Field; E.E. Finch; Jonathan Fisher; Captain Simon Fitch; Freake Limner; J.O.J. Frost; Gibbs Limner; Francis Guy ; John Valentine Haidt; Sturtevant J. Hamblen; Rufus Hathaway; Mary Hazard; Edward Hicks; Joseph H. Hidley; Charles Hofmann; Jurgan Frederick Huge; Antonion N.G. Jacobsen; Richard Jennys; William Jennys; Joshua Johnston; John Kane; Frederick Kemmelmeyer; Fitz Hugh Lane; Jacob Maenel; William Marsh; George Washington Mark; Mason Limner; Jacob Bailey Moore; Anna Maria Robertson Moses; Reuben Moulthrop; Charles Parsons; Patroon painters; Sheldon Peck; John Ritto Penniman; Ammi Phillips; Eunice Pinney; Horace Pippin; Rufus Porter; Asahel Lynde Powers; Willima Matthew Prior; Charles Sidney Raleigh; George Ropes; Moses B. Russell; Robert Salmon; Paul A. Seifert; Isaac Sheffield; R.W. and S.A. Shute; Joseph B. Smith; Joseph Steward; Joseph Whiting Stock; William Pierce Stubbs; George Thresher (or Thrasher); Fritz G. Vogt; Henry Walton; Benjamin Franklin West; Micah Williams; Mary Ann Willson; Orison Wood; and H. Young.