Visual Arts of Chicago - Self-taught Artists and Outsider Art

Self-taught Artists and Outsider Art

"Chicago emerged early on as an outpost for outsider art," according to critic Andrew Patner.

Manierre Dawson was an early self-taught artist, who began painting abstracts in 1910. He was invited to display in the Armory Show.

In the 1990s, a group of Chicago collectors, including Bob Roth, founder of the Chicago Reader, and Ann Nathan and Judy Saslow, both of whom have opened acclaimed galleries, organized Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, which leads tours of Midwestern self-taught artists and has its own exhibition space.

Paul Waggoner, an eccentric himself, was an art dealer and champion of outsider art.

Carl Hammer, an art dealer in Chicago, has handled much strange, figurative outsider art, including the epic novel, illustrated with hermaphroditic girls traced from coloring books, of Henry Darger, and the naive portraits of society ladies of Lee Godie. Hammer also represents Mr. Imagination, a self-taught bottlecap muralist Mr. Imagination, whose work is in several museums, also participated in the 2007 public art project, "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet".