The guide
The complete guide to outsider art and UK graffiti
Start with the basics or go straight to an artist, a place or a question. Every guide lists its sources, and legends are labelled as legends.
Understanding outsider art
What outsider art is, where the idea came from, and why the label itself is argued over.
01
What Is Outsider Art?
Outsider art is art made by self-taught people working outside the art world. Here is what the term means, where it came from, and why it…
02
Art Brut vs Outsider Art vs Folk Art: What's the Difference?
Art brut, outsider art, folk art, naïve art, visionary art, self-taught art: what each term means, where it came from and how they overlap.
03
Jean Dubuffet and the Invention of Art Brut
How a French wine merchant turned painter coined "art brut" in 1945, collected thousands of works, and founded the world's first museum of…
04
Roger Cardinal, the 1972 Book and the 1979 Outsiders Exhibition
How a British scholar's book title gave us the term "outsider art", and how a Hayward Gallery exhibition in 1979 introduced it to the…
05
Art From the Asylum: Prinzhorn, Bethlem and the Psychiatric Collections
Before art brut there were the hospital collections. How psychiatrists in Switzerland, Germany and Britain gathered their patients' art…
06
Mediumistic Art: Spirit-Guided Drawings and Paintings
Art made by people who believed spirits guided their hands, from a Victorian medium in Bond Street to a French coal miner and an East…
07
"Outsider", "Self-Taught" or "Outlier"? The Labels Debate
Why the term "outsider art" is argued over, what people use instead, and how to talk about the work respectfully.
08
Supported Studios: Where Outsider Art Is Made Today
Much of today's outsider art is made in supported studios. How they started, how they work, and the UK studios worth knowing.
09
Outsider Art, Ethics and the Market
Consent, ownership, rising prices and disputed estates: the questions that come with collecting art by people who never chose to be artists.
Outsider artists
Profiles of the self-taught artists at the heart of outsider art, from Bern and Chicago to East London and Montgomery, Alabama.
10
Adolf Wölfli: The 25,000-Page Universe of an Art Brut Pioneer
A Swiss farm labourer who spent 35 years in a psychiatric clinic and created an illustrated universe of words, pictures and music running…
11
Henry Darger and In the Realms of the Unreal
A hospital cleaner in Chicago who secretly wrote and illustrated one of the longest works of fiction ever made, discovered only as he left…
12
Madge Gill and Myrninerest: Britain's Best-Known Outsider Artist
An East London medium who made thousands of intricate ink drawings, some on rolls of calico many metres long, and said they belonged to her…
13
Scottie Wilson: The Glasgow Junk Dealer Picasso Collected
A Glasgow-born junk dealer who started drawing in his forties, sold his pictures for shillings, and was collected by Picasso and Dubuffet.
14
Aloïse Corbaz: Love, Theatre and the Kaiser
A Swiss governess who fell in love with the idea of Kaiser Wilhelm II and spent over 40 years in a psychiatric hospital drawing lovers…
15
Martín Ramírez: Trains, Tunnels and Horsemen
A Mexican migrant worker who spent 30 years in Californian hospitals, gluing scraps of paper together to draw trains, tunnels, horsemen and…
16
Bill Traylor: The Artist Born Into Slavery Who Began Drawing at 85
Born enslaved on an Alabama plantation, Bill Traylor began drawing on a Montgomery pavement at about 85 and made more than a thousand works…
17
Judith Scott: Fibre Sculptures That Spoke Without Words
Institutionalised for 35 years, Judith Scott found her voice at 44 by wrapping found objects in yarn and fabric. Her sculptures are now in…
18
The Prinzhorn Collection's "Ten Masters"
The ten artists Hans Prinzhorn made famous under pseudonyms in 1922, their real names, and what happened to the collection's artists under…
19
The Gugging Artists and the House of Artists
How drawing tests at a psychiatric clinic near Vienna led to the House of Artists, and the Gugging artists who became famous worldwide.
20
British Outsider Artists You Should Know
From East London mediums to a Birkenhead flat transformed into a Roman temple: the British artists at the heart of the outsider art story.
Visionary environments
Palaces, towers, gardens and flats transformed, often over decades, by one determined person.
21
What Is a Visionary Environment?
A home, garden or plot of land transformed into a single work of art, usually by one self-taught person over many years. What they are and…
22
Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal: 33 Years, One Postman
A country postman picked up a strange stone in 1879 and spent the next 33 years building a palace from stones gathered on his rounds.
23
The Watts Towers: Simon Rodia's Nuestro Pueblo
An Italian immigrant tile setter spent 33 years building towers nearly 30 metres high in his Los Angeles back yard, then gave them away and…
24
Nek Chand's Rock Garden of Chandigarh
A government road inspector secretly filled a forest gorge with thousands of figures made from waste. When officials found it, they gave…
25
Ron's Place, Birkenhead: England's First Listed Outsider Art
Behind the door of an ordinary Victorian house in Birkenhead, Ron Gittins spent more than 30 years building fireplaces, temples and murals…
26
Visionary Environments in Britain: Grottoes, Menageries and Hidden Worlds
From a flint grotto on Brighton beach to a concrete zoo in Northumberland: Britain's self-built art environments, and what has survived.
Seeing and collecting
Museums, galleries, fairs, books and films, and how to buy outsider art responsibly.
27
Where to See Outsider Art in the UK
Public collections, galleries, supported studios and environments across the UK where you can see outsider and self-taught art.
28
Outsider Art Museums in Europe and the US
The museums worth crossing borders for, from Dubuffet's collection in Lausanne to Henry Darger's room in Chicago.
29
Outsider Art Fairs: New York, Paris and Beyond
The Outsider Art Fair has run in New York since 1993 and in Paris since 2013. Its history, upcoming dates and how to get the most from a…
30
Collecting Outsider Art: A Beginner's Guide
Where to buy, what to ask, and how to make sure the artists benefit. A practical guide to starting a collection of outsider and self-taught…
31
The Best Books and Films About Outsider Art and Graffiti
The books and documentaries worth your time, from Roger Cardinal's original 1972 book to the films that brought graffiti to Britain.
Graffiti in the UK
How graffiti arrived in Britain, the cities and crews that shaped it, and where to see it today.
32
A History of Graffiti in the UK
From prisoners' carvings and political slogans to the hip hop crews of the 1980s and the street art boom: how graffiti became part of…
33
Graffiti vs Street Art: What's the Difference? Plus the Writers' Vocabulary
What separates graffiti from street art, and what writers mean by tags, throw-ups, pieces, burners, wildstyle and the buff.
34
Bristol: The Birthplace of British Street Art
How a city of sound systems and youth clubs produced 3D, Inkie, Nick Walker and Banksy, and became the UK's street art capital.
35
London's Graffiti Story: Crews, Trains and Tunnels
From "Clapton is God" to the Chrome Angelz, the Underground, Leake Street and Shoreditch: how London built one of the world's great…
36
Banksy: The Essential Guide
From Bristol walls to Dismaland, a self-shredding painting and a statue on Pall Mall: Banksy's career explained, with dates and sources.
37
Banksy vs King Robbo: London's Great Graffiti Feud
A 24-year-old piece under a canal bridge in Camden, a Banksy stencil, and a feud that pitted old-school writers against the world's most…
38
The Best UK Cities for Street Art and Graffiti
A city-by-city guide to seeing graffiti and street art across the UK, from Bristol and Shoreditch to Glasgow's mural trail and Belfast.
39
Legal Graffiti Walls in the UK: Where Can You Paint?
There are fewer legal walls in the UK than most people think. Where they are, what "tolerated" really means, and how to paint legally.
40
Graffiti and the Law in the UK
Graffiti without permission is a crime across the UK. A plain-English guide to the laws in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
41
UK Street Art Festivals: Upfest, Weston Wallz, Nuart and More
Where to watch artists paint live: the UK's main street art festivals, when they run, and the landmark events that changed the scene.
42
Belfast's Murals: Politics, Memory and Street Art
Northern Ireland's painted walls are among the most famous murals in the world. Where the tradition came from, what the murals show, and…
43
Where Graffiti Meets Outsider Art
Both are self-taught, unofficial and made outside the gallery system. What graffiti and outsider art really have in common, and where they…