Outsider art is art made by self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds.
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor of the Ecole de Paris. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art movement art brut, and for the collection of works—Collection de l'art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime.
Charles August Albert Dellschau was a Prussian-American who gained posthumous fame after the discovery of his large scrapbooks that contained drawings, collages and watercolors of airplanes and airships. He has been classified as one of the first visionary artists.
Judith Scott was an American fiber sculptor. She was deaf and had Down Syndrome. She was internationally renowned for her art. In 1987, Judith was enrolled at the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California, which supports people with developmental disabilities. There, Judith discovered her passion and talent for abstract fiber art, and she was able to communicate in a new form. An account of Scott's life, Entwined: Sisters and Secrets in the Silent World of Artist Judith Scott, was written by her twin sister, Joyce Wallace Scott, and was published in 2016.
Madge Gill, was an English outsider and visionary artist.
Johann Knüpfer (1866–1910) was a schizophrenic outsider artist and one of the "schizophrenic masters" profiled by Hans Prinzhorn in his field-defining work Artistry of the Mentally Ill.
The Philadelphia Wireman is the working name given to an unknown outsider artist responsible for approximately 1,200 small-scale wire-frame sculptures that were found by a passerby, abandoned on a street outside a transient home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1982. The artist is assumed to have access to the tools required to bend some of the heavy-gauge wire in the sculptures; it is hypothesised that the sculptures were abandoned after their creator's death. Nothing is known about the artist's motives. Many of the pieces resemble African art, and this plus the demographics of the neighborhood where the art collection was found have led some reviewers to speculate that the artist was African-American. In 1999, according to the Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, a gallery visitor correctly identified the street that the art was found on, and confirmed that he had seen an elderly black man making these sculptures circa 1970, but beyond that the artist has never been identified.
Frieze Art Fair is an annual contemporary art fair first held in 2003 in London's Regent's Park. Developed by the founders of the contemporary art magazine Frieze, the fair has since expanded to include editions in four cities, in addition to acquiring several other art fairs. Following the original Frieze Art Fair, the fair added Frieze Masters (2012), also in London, dedicated to art made before the year 2000; Frieze New York (2012); Frieze Los Angeles (2019); and Frieze Seoul (2022). In 2023, Frieze acquired The Armory Show in New York, and EXPO Chicago.
Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong; and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help grow and develop art programs. While Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, it has gained a large international audience of art spectators and students as well.
István Sándorfi was a Hungarian hyperrealist painter.
Rudy Rotter (1913–2001) was an American outsider and self-taught artist residing in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Raised in Milwaukee, he moved to Manitowoc after the War in the late 1940s to set up a dental practice. After settling in and starting a family, he embarked on a simultaneous career as an artist. In the following decades he produced a prodigious volume of art.
For centuries, Paris has attracted artists from around the world, arriving in the city to educate themselves and to seek inspiration from its artistic resources and galleries. As a result, Paris has received a reputation as the "City of Art". Home to some of the world's most famous museums and galleries, including the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, the city today remains home to a thriving community of artists. Paris is recognized globally for its public landmarks and masterpieces of architecture including the Arc de Triomphe and a symbol of France, the Eiffel Tower.
Susan Te Kahurangi King is an autistic artist from New Zealand who found international fame in 2009.
Anna Zemánková was a Czech painter. She was one of the world's most important artists of art brut. However, her high artistic culture, the diversity of her work, and her clear inner vision make her a departure from the original definition of art brut, and she figures in this category as a solitaire. Eighteen of Zemánková’s works were included in the seminal 2013 Venice Biennale. Her works were exhibited in New York, Paris, and on solo exhibitions in Lausanne and Prague. She is represented in the world's most important art brut collections and auctioned at Christie's.
Axel Sanson is a French artist.
Agustín Fernández was a Cuban painter, sculptor, and multimedia artist. Although he was born in Cuba, he spent the majority of his career outside of Cuba, and produced art in Havana, Paris, San Juan, and New York.
The Paris International Contemporary Art Fair is a contemporary art event that occurs in Paris.
Lewis Smith was an artist belonging to the Outsider art movement.
John Urho Kemp also known as "Crystal John" or "Cosmic John", was an American outsider artist, "a metaphysical researcher", and a vegan. His main artistic output consisted of "offerings", photocopied leaflets presenting formulas, drawings, mandalas, magic cubes and verses based on Kemp's ideas of godhood, spirituality and metaphysics. He distributed these leaflets to everyone interested. In addition to the leaflets, he also produced similarly themed original pieces of art for his personal use. Kemp began producing these works probably in the late 1970s. During his lifetime he did not receive much recognition as an artist, however in the years following his death there has been renewed interest in his work. His works are circulated mostly in Art Brut circles.
Melvin Way was an American folk artist.
