Florence Dibell Bartlett

Who was Florence Dibell Bartlett?

Florence Dibell Bartlett was a Chicago heiress and folk art collector, who is best known for founding the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, the world's first international folk art museum. The museum was founded to express her belief that folk art is a bond between the people of the world.

The museum opened to the public in 1953 and has gained national and international recognition as the home to the world’s largest collection of folk art. Its collection of more than 135,000 artifacts is divided into four exhibition wings: Bartlett, Girard, Hispanic Heritage, and Neutrogena.

Bartlett was the daughter of Adophus Bartlett, a wealthy partner in a large wholesale hardware business in Chicago that became part of True Value Hardware. Florence Bartlett's sister, Maie Bartlett Heard, was co-founder of the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Florence Bartlett had a winter home, El Mirador, in Alcalde, New Mexico, near Los Luceros, the home of Mary Cabot Wheelwright, founder of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, also in Santa Fe. Bartlett gave her Alcalde house and property to the State of New Mexico, as part of her gift that founded MOIFA.