Welcome room - north wall - fifth view
Congradulations!
We've glided past the twelve foot wide hallway that leads to our first gallery room - and we haven't gotten totally lost.
We're now at the next view along our welcome room's north wall, gliding from left to right.
The sponsor's story
The museum's sponsor is Traditional Fine Arts Organization, a nonprofit dedicated to furthering enjoyment of American art that can be touched and felt. They specialize in American representational art. We know it's representational when we can easily tell the top edge from the bottom edge.
There's an acronym for our sponsor: TFAO. The word "traditional" is pretty vague. The words "fine arts" don't mean much either to TFAO any more. They're now interested in most types of American representational art.
(above: Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life Childhood, 1842. Picture from National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) Source: Wikimedia Commons - public domain*)
TFAO got started in 2003, takong over a for-profit outfit named Traditional Fine Arts Online that started in 1996. They were selling paintings online. They also had an online publication called Resource Library Magazine and did some research too. TFAO continued the publication, changed its name simply to Resource Library, amplified our research and quit selling art.
Over the years TFAO's done a lot of research projects, reports and studies and published thousands of articles and essays. Besides educating millions of folks all over the world about American art, TFAO provides grants to nonprofit arts organizations too. The grants are mostly for indoors and online exhibitions.
(above: Thomas Hart Benton, The Cliffs, 1921, oil on canvas, 29 ? 34.5 inches, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
TFAO has published several catalogs over the years. Some are still going strong. One's named Topics in American Art. Among over 200 topics there's some deep dives. One is California Art History. Our sponsor is located somewhere in a cloud somewhere above La La Land., so is especially fond of that topic.
Lets take a right turn to see the first
view along the east wall of the welcome room. 
BTW: If we want to take a realy, realy, deep dive into virtual art museums and related topics, here's some reports our sponsor cooked up:
The Digital Frontier of Amererican Art: An Analysis of Nonprofit Virtual Museums
Our Collection of Virtual Tours of Exhibitions by American Art Museums
Yikes! Our brains will likely explode if we read all of this.
TFAO Museum of American Art is proudly sponsored by Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved. © 2024