Outsider Art

For the moment we’re going to use the term “Outsider Art” as shorthand for the sort of artists we’ll be helping and exhibiting. I’m fully aware using this term can be problematic but we feel it’s a commonly accepted description that the wider public understand.

The beginnings of Outsider Art, or Art Brut as it was then called, can be traced back to the 1940s and the work of French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985).

After studying The Art of the Insane by Swiss psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn, Dubuffet started to collect art from people he considered to be free from societal constraints, such as psychiatric patients, hermits, and spiritualists. He believed that art made outside of cultural and social conditioning was the purest form of creative expression.

The term Outsider Art was coined by Roger Cardinal in 1972 as the English equivalent of “art brut”. It has since broadened to include artists from  a variety of backgrounds, including poverty, disability and neurodivergence as well as self-taught artists who have had little or no contact with the art world.

Now there are numerous dedicated Outsider Art galleries around the world and annual Outsider Art fairs in Paris and New York. Over 100 books about outsider art have been published, two magazines and countless documentaries, Sotherbies and Christies both hold annual auctions of Outsider art and most major art galleries have held exhibitions.