COMING ATTRACTIONS

Whether it’s quilts, whirligigs, weather vanes or million-dollar paintings, 19th-Century American folk art is soaring in popularity. Sotheby’s gallery drew more than $1.5 million at a recent auction for two masterly folk-art paintings, one for a record price. And its rival gallery, Christie’s, recently opened a division devoted exclusively to folk art because of what its director, John Hays, says is a “tremendous rise in interest in the last three years.”