American Art

The art collection of the New Jersey State Museum is presented as a mostly chronological journey through American art history with one noticeable exception: The works of black artists aren't on the main itinerary. The state museum is widely known for its fine collection of African- American art. But for its silver anniversary show, those works were separated from the rest of the collection and hung out of sequence. The placement, apart from the mainstream of American art, has upset black artists and curators.

Daniel J. Terra, a Bucks County native and philanthropist who bestowed a $22 million matching grant on the Philadelphia University of the Arts last year, died Friday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. Mr. Terra, 85, was ambassador-at-large for cultural affairs during the Reagan administration. He had residences in Georgetown, Chicago and Giverny, France. Mr. Terra grew up in South Philadelphia and graduated from Roman Catholic High School in 1927. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1931 with a degree in chemical engineering.

For the most part, the artists of " 'Great and Mighty Things': Outsider Art From the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection," which goes on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Sunday, shouldn't be called "outsiders. " They may be free of associations with academic art and the so-called art mainstream, however one chooses to define that elastic term. But "outsider" is a tag invented by insiders, both to separate these artists from the elite (while making them marketable) and also to camouflage or excuse technical deficiencies in their work, particularly wonky drawing.

USArtists97, an exposition and sale of American art that benefits the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, will be on view from Friday to Sunday at the 33d Street Armory in West Philadelphia. Besides booths by more than 50 participating dealers, this year's show will feature two special exhibitions, each with a related lecture and recognition of academy-trained artists whose work is being offered for sale. Such artworks will be tagged with an "Academy diamond" motif adapted from an architectural detail on the academy's Museum of American Art. One of the special exhibitions, "Sunshine From Darkness," will present 40 to 50 works of art created by persons who are mentally ill. These works come from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.

The first thing you need to know about Joseph Stella is that he is not Frank Stella. That's not as fatuous a statement as it seems. While perusing the Joseph Stella retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art here, I overheard several visitors discussing the show under the mistaken impression that they were visiting with Frank. Not only are the two painters not related, they represent different generations and philosophies of art-making. Frank, born in 1936, made his reputation while still in his 20s with his "what-you-see-is-what-you-see" brand of geometric abstraction.

The important thing about the New Jersey State Museum's permanent collection is its attachment to New Jersey as a rich source of American art and artists. Not that this institution won't collect anything made elsewhere - if the story of American art cannot be told without paintings by Jackson Pollock and John Singleton Copley or a Philadelphia Chippendale chair, this museum is committed to collecting it. But on the whole, the collection concentrates on artists associated in some way with the Garden State, relying heavily on gifts of items it wants.

There was a buoyancy in the step of Daniel J. Terra, a kind of subdued avian bounce, as he picked his way through thickets of boxes and electrical gadgets adorning his new museum. Every few feet, he spotted a painting on the wall or floor, homed in and began to talk. "That has quite a story behind it," he clucked last week while moving into position in front of Charles Courtney Curran's Lotus Lilies, a shimmering 1888 oil. "I acquired that about 1973. I went to see this chap on a Sunday morning with the intention of buying it. People told me they would never part with it. As soon as I entered the house, I saw it over the davenport with marvelous light on it. His wife says, 'Don't look at that painting.

Art Museums & Institutions African American Heritage Museum 661 Jackson Rd., Newtonville, NJ; 609-704-5495. www.aahmsnj.org . Tue.-Fri. 10 am-3 pm. The Barnes Foundation - Philadelphia 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.; 215-278-7000. www.barnesfoundation.org . $18; $15 seniors 65 and over; $10 students and children 17 and under. Sat.-Mon., Wed.-Thu. 9:30 am-6 pm; Fri. 9:30 am-10 pm. Brandywine River Museum Rte. 1 & Rte. 100, Chadds Ford; 610-388-2700. www.brandywinemuseum.org . Andrew Wyeth's Ides of March: The Making of a Masterpiece.

In the 1920s, black artists and intellectuals in Washington often gathered at the home of Lillian Evans Tibbs, an opera singer known professionally as Madame Lillian Evanti. Besides presiding over her informal salon, Madame Evanti, who died in 1967, collected art by African Americans. Her Victorian row house just off Logan Circle now houses the Evans-Tibbs Collection, a public gallery administered by her grandson, Thurlow E. Tibbs Jr. The gallery organizes exhibitions and maintains a reference archive on African American art of the 19th and 20th centuries.