Fred Beshid is an artist and film producer based in Los Angeles, CA. He has been collecting thrift store paintings for more than twenty years and currently has more than 500 paintings in his collection.

The Museum of Fred, the first virtual museum to feature paintings purchased from thrift stores, has launched an interactive Website that allows public access to the formerly private collection of Fred Beshid.

"I feel compelled to collect these works because amateurs made them. This type of American folk art tends to be more personal and innocent than traditional academic art, asserts Fred Beshid,creator of the museum. "I feel making art is too important to be left only to art professionals. As you can see from the website there's a lot of art being created by ordinary people that never gets shown in public because museums tend to be elitist institutions."

In the future, Beshid hopes to create a real museum where people of all ages can appreciate these unique works of American Folk Art in person. In the meantime, he's thankful the Internet has created this opportunity to share his collection with a global audience. "The Internet has enabled more diversity in the images and stories we are preserving for future generations."

NPR - All Things Considered
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5563221