Roger Cardinal, the 1972 Book and the 1979 Outsiders Exhibition

Who was Roger Cardinal?

Roger Cardinal was a British scholar of French literature and art, born in 1940, who taught for decades at the University of Kent. He came to art brut through his research on Surrealism and automatic writing, the Surrealist practice of letting the hand move without conscious control. He went on to write widely on landscape, collecting and self-taught art, and became one of the most respected writers in the field. He died on 1 November 2019, aged 79.

How did Cardinal coin the term "outsider art"?

In 1972 Cardinal published a book introducing Dubuffet's ideas and collection to English readers. He wanted to call it Art Brut, arguing that English already used French terms such as art nouveau and art deco. His publishers, Studio Vista, wanted an English title. After much discussion they settled on Outsider Art.

The book introduced English readers to Adolf Wölfli, Aloïse, Madge Gill and many others. Cardinal never much liked the term that bore his name. He later observed that it had come to be used for far more than he intended, and as a marketing label. Today many writers prefer "self-taught" or "outlier" art. See the labels debate.

What was the 1979 Outsiders exhibition?

Outsiders: An Art Without Precedent or Tradition ran at the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank from 8 February to 8 April 1979. It was curated by Roger Cardinal and Victor Musgrave, a poet, dealer and former gallery owner who had become fascinated by the subject. Musgrave took the idea to the Arts Council, which ran the Hayward.

The exhibition presented more than 400 works by 42 artists from France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Britain and the United States. Among them were Aloïse, Henry Darger, Madge Gill, Johann Hauser, Augustin Lesage, Martín Ramírez, Scottie Wilson, August Walla, Oswald Tschirtner and Joseph Yoakum. It also showed photographs of environments such as Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Idéal and Simon Rodia's Watts Towers. The show attracted 38,640 visitors.

Why was the Hayward show so important?

It was the first major exhibition of outsider art in Britain, and for many visitors their first encounter with it. Some critics were scornful, but the show made the subject visible in the UK in a way the book alone could not. Together with Cardinal's book, it inspired a generation of collectors, curators and artists. Among them was John Maizels, who founded Raw Vision magazine in London in 1989.

What happened to Victor Musgrave's collection?

After the exhibition, Victor Musgrave founded the Outsider Archive, a collection he hoped would become the basis of a specialist museum in Britain. He worked with the curator Monika Kinley, and after Musgrave's death in 1984 she carried on building the collection and looking for a home for it. It was shown at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and in 2010 it was given to the Whitworth at the University of Manchester, with help from the Contemporary Art Society.

The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection has more than 1,150 works by around 130 artists, gathered between 1979 and 2010. It is the largest collection of its kind in a UK public gallery. See where to see outsider art in the UK.

Cardinal's other work on outsider art

Cardinal kept writing about the field for nearly 50 years. His books and essays include a study of Madge Gill and an essay on outsider art and autism, and he was a long-standing contributor to Raw Vision. He also wrote about Surrealism, landscape painting and the culture of collecting, which helps explain why he saw outsider art as part of a wider history of art rather than a curiosity.

Where to go next

Go back to the source with Jean Dubuffet and art brut, meet Madge Gill, or read about British outsider artists.