Outsider Art Moves In

▪ 1999

      Works of art produced by amateurs unconnected to the conventional art world were long considered unworthy of serious attention, but in recent years these works, known as "outsider art," have gained a devoted following among many art critics and enthusiasts eager for a less-academic and more personal mode of representation. In 1998 some of the best examples of outsider art were featured in a traveling exhibition, "Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology," which enjoyed a successful debut at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Outsider Art Fair, staged annually since 1993 in New York City, also sparked much interest and, with 40 American and European dealers filling its booths, confirmed that outsider art was becoming a viable genre with a healthy market.

      What characterizes outsider art? Its roots lie in the folk paintings of self-taught masters like Grandma Moses, whose documentation of traditional farm life in the U.S. made her internationally popular, and Horace Pippin, celebrated for his primitivist depictions of African-Americans. Outsider art differs from folk art, however, in that it depicts the isolation of those living on the margins of society rather than reflecting the cultural traditions of a community. Among the most notable outsider artists are Henry Darger, a Chicago recluse whose fantasy-inspired watercolours and accompanying 15,000-page epic were discovered after his death, and Martín Ramírez, a Mexican-American who created large-scale surrealistic drawings during a life spent mostly in a mental institution.

      After the 1972 publication of critic Roger Cardinal's influential book Outsider Art, interest in works of art unhampered by convention and created outside mainstream cultural influences grew at a steady rate. The British quarterly Raw Vision was established in 1989 exclusively to cover the genre. The American Visionary Art Museum, the first national museum dedicated solely to the work of self-taught artists, opened in Baltimore, Md., in November 1995. By 1998, with other specialist museums opening and an increasing number of collectors, the prospect that outsider art would find a wider audience seemed all but certain.

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