Adele Earnest

Adele Earnest (1901–1993) was an American folk art collector and historian, noted as an authority on wildfowl decoys.

As a young woman, newly married, she lived for a time in Pennsylvania German country, an experience to which she ascribed her interest in folk art.

[1] Alongside Hamilton, Marian Willard, Burt Martinson, Albert Bullowa, and Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., she was a founding trustee of the American Folk Art Museum.

[2] Instrumental in supporting many of its early programs, she donated numerous works to the collection, including a pair of decoys by Lothrop T. Holmes; also among her gifts was a weathervane depicting the Archangel Gabriel which went on to become a symbol of the institution.

[4] Earnest's papers are held in the archives of the American Folk Art Museum.