Outsider art and UK graffiti: key facts

The ideas

1. Outsider art is art made by self-taught people working outside the mainstream art world of art schools, galleries and dealers.

   Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Outsider art · Read the guide

2. The French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut ("raw art") in 1945.

   Source: National Galleries of Scotland: Art brut · Read the guide

3. The British art historian Roger Cardinal coined the term "outsider art" in 1972, as the title of his book introducing art brut to English readers.

   Source: Artforum: Roger Cardinal (1940–2019) · Read the guide

4. Dubuffet co-founded the Compagnie de l'Art Brut in Paris in 1948 with André Breton, Michel Tapié and others.

   Source: National Galleries of Scotland: Art brut · Read the guide

5. Dubuffet's 1949 exhibition at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris showed about 200 works by 60 makers.

   Source: Monoskop: L'art brut préféré aux arts culturels (1949) · Read the guide

6. In 2018 the National Gallery of Art in Washington used the term "outliers" instead of "outsiders" in the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art.

   Source: The Art Newspaper (2018) · Read the guide

Collections and museums

1. Jean Dubuffet gave his art brut collection of about 5,000 works by 133 creators to the City of Lausanne in 1971.

   Source: Collection de l'Art Brut: History · Read the guide

2. The Collection de l'Art Brut opened in Lausanne in February 1976 and held more than 70,000 works at its 50th anniversary in 2026.

   Source: Lausanne Tourisme: 50 years of Art Brut in Lausanne · Read the guide

3. Hans Prinzhorn's Heidelberg collection held more than 5,000 works by about 450 psychiatric patients by 1921, and his book Artistry of the Mentally Ill was published in 1922.

   Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Hans Prinzhorn · Read the guide

4. The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection at the Whitworth, Manchester, has more than 1,150 works by around 130 artists and is the largest collection of its kind in a UK public gallery.

   Source: Contemporary Art Society: The Whitworth · Read the guide

5. The Hayward Gallery's Outsiders exhibition, from 8 February to 8 April 1979, showed more than 400 works by 42 artists and drew 38,640 visitors.

   Source: Google Arts & Culture: Outsiders (Hayward Gallery, 1979) · Read the guide

6. The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore opened on 24 November 1995.

   Source: Wikipedia: American Visionary Art Museum · Read the guide

The artists

1. Adolf Wölfli's St Adolf Giant Creation runs to about 25,000 pages in 45 large volumes and 16 school notebooks.

   Source: Kunstmuseum Bern: Adolf Wölfli · Read the guide

2. Henry Darger's novel In the Realms of the Unreal runs to more than 15,000 typed pages and was discovered by his landlords when he moved to a nursing home in 1972.

   Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Henry Darger · Read the guide

3. Madge Gill (1882–1961) said that from 3 March 1920 her drawings were guided by a spirit called Myrninerest.

   Source: madgegill.com · Read the guide

4. Bill Traylor, born into slavery around 1853, made between about 1,200 and 1,500 drawings on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, between 1939 and 1942.

   Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Bill Traylor · Read the guide

5. Judith Scott began making fibre sculptures at 44, after joining Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California, in 1987.

   Source: Smithsonian American Art Museum: Judith Scott · Read the guide

6. About 30 artists in the Prinzhorn Collection are believed to have been murdered by the Nazis, including Franz Karl Bühler at Grafeneck in 1940.

   Source: Cambridge University Library: Prinzhorn's influential book, 100 years on · Read the guide

Visionary environments

1. The postman Ferdinand Cheval built his Palais Idéal at Hauterives, France, over 33 years, from 1879 to 1912; it was classified as a historic monument in 1969.

   Source: Banque des Territoires · Read the guide

2. Simon Rodia built the Watts Towers in Los Angeles single-handed between 1921 and 1954.

   Source: Wikipedia: Watts Towers · Read the guide

3. Nek Chand's Rock Garden in Chandigarh opened to the public in 1976, after officials discovered the garden he had built in secret.

   Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Nek Chand · Read the guide

4. Ron's Place in Birkenhead was listed Grade II on 19 March 2024, the first example of outsider art to be nationally listed in England.

   Source: Wikipedia: Ron's Place · Read the guide

Graffiti in the UK

1. Hip hop graffiti reached the UK in the early 1980s; Bristol's Robert Del Naja (3D) began painting in summer 1983.

   Source: Inspiring City: Robert Del Naja, 3D and the early days of Bristol graffiti · Read the guide

2. In England and Wales, graffiti without the owner's permission is criminal damage under section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971.

   Source: Newcastle City Council: Graffiti · Read the guide

3. Selling spray paint to anyone under 16 is an offence in England and Wales and in Scotland.

   Source: Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004, section 122 · Read the guide

4. Leake Street, a tunnel under London Waterloo, has been a legal graffiti space since Banksy's Cans Festival on 3 to 5 May 2008.

   Source: Banksy Explained: The Cans Festival, 2008 · Read the guide

5. Banksy's Love is in the Bin sold for £18,582,000 at Sotheby's London on 14 October 2021, the artist's auction record.

   Source: Banksy Explained: 2021 auction results · Read the guide

6. Upfest, the Bristol street art festival founded in 2008, is described as Europe's largest live street art festival.

   Source: Wikipedia: Upfest · Read the guide

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