Uptown Art Fair
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The Uptown Art Fair is the largest art fair of its kind in Minnesota and is one of the top 10 fine arts festivals in the country[citation needed]. For 40 years it has been held on the streets of the Uptown area of south Minneapolis. It currently features 385 artists and draws 350,000 people in the three day event. Artists show a broad range of artistic styles, photography, sculpture, ceramics, painting and jewelry are all on display.
Currently the Uptown Art fair is sponsored by Metris and serves as the main fundraising event for the Uptown Association helping fund projects in the Uptown area, including security officers and lighting. It is held on the same weekend as the Loring Park and the Powderhorn art fairs, generally on the first weekend in August.
In 1963 three Uptown businessmen were looking for a way to increase traffic into the area and acting as part of the Uptown Commercial Club decided to produce the first Art Fair. In it’s second year roughly 75,000 people came and throughout the 1960’s the fair solidified into an annual event on the art fair calendar. Toward the late 60’s and into the 1970’s however concerns about the quality of the content grew, so much so that at one point it was suggested that the fair be closed.
In a response to those concerns several changes were made over the years to the acceptance procedures. The number of artists was reduced from 600 to 450 and it became a juried event. The number of featured artists has varied and has gone as low as 385 in 2006. The artist quality of the featured art improved drastically and it continued to grow into the top ten status it has currently.
In 1990 local artists wanted to harken back to the early days of craft/art fairs where all works were more art than product and started the Powderhorn Art fair. The Powderhorn Art fair is held on the same date as the Uptown Art fair.
