During 1996 and 1997 T. Marshall Hahn donated a substantial portion of his collection of contemporary folk art to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. His gift was the first major collection of self-taught art primarily from the South to be given to a general interest American museum. This book is published in conjunction with the first public exhibition of the Hahn Collection.

The collection comprises more than 140 paintings, works on paper, and sculptures-the creations of more than thirty artists. Especially strong in works by African Americans from the South, it includes work by Ned Catledge, Thornton Dial, Sr., Sam Doyle, Howard Finster, William Hawkins, Mattie Lou O'Kelley, Elijah Pierce, Nellie Mae Rowe, Bill Traylor, Raymond Coins, Henry Darger, Minnie Evans, Lonnie Holley, Sister Gertrude Morgan, John W. Perates, Martin Ramirez, Herbert Singleton, and Joseph E. Yoakum.

Let It Shine, a full-color catalog of the exhibition, features works by these artists as well as an interview with Marshall Hahn conducted by Lynne Spriggs, curator of folk art at the museum.

An essay by Joanne Cubbs explores conceptual and aesthetic themes common to southern folk art and the place of the Hahn Collection in this field. An essay by Lynda Hartigan, chief curator of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, presents an overview of the development of a marketplace for southern folk art, a history which remains largely undocumented.

The broad range of art and artists showcased in this spectacular volume reveals why the Hahn Collection is one of the most notable in the world.

Distributed for the High Museum of Art