Art
Revisiting the First American Folk Art Museum, Founded by a Modernist Sculptor
The rough finishes and loose poses of Elie Nadelman's sculptures of circus performers, pianists, and dancers were influenced by his incredible collection of folk art.
Outsider Art
Art
The Self-Taught Artist Who Casts Cardboard "Actors" in All His Films
NANTES, France — Benjamin Franklin’s maxim that “you can do anything you set your mind to” could not ring truer for the French self-taught filmmaker and artist Guy Brunet.
News
Smithsonian Doubles Its Bill Traylor Holdings Ahead of 2018 Retrospective
Bill Traylor's drawings and paintings were not recognized by the art world until decades after his death in 1949.
Art
Researchers Unroll a Rare 19th-Century Painted Panorama
One of the longest paintings ever created is an 1848 depiction of a "whaling voyage 'round the world" that stretches 1,275 feet — roughly the length of 14 blue whales, according to its holder, the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Books
Quiet Drawings from a Life Lost in Mental Institutions
In one of the drawings discovered in a well-worn album, fished out of the trash in 1970 by a teenager in Springfield, Missouri, a wide-eyed woman points to a bouquet of flowers below the words "ECTLECTRC PENCIL."
Art
The Personal Passions and Detailed Devotions of the Outsider Art Fair
Now in its 24th edition, the Outsider Art Fair has found a new home this year at the Metropolitan Pavilion, currently filled with the fair's largest number of exhibitors yet.
Art
Rhode Island's Newest Gallery Champions Artists With Disabilities
The term “Outsider Art,” coined in 1972 by writer Roger Cardinal, has plenty of critics.
Art
Outsider Art Fair Preview: Discoveries, Surprises, and an Expanded Vision
The 24th annual Outsider Art Fair opens in New York on January 21, and never before has the scope of what might qualify as — or, more precisely, of what is being called — outsider art seemed so diverse or vast.
Art
Early-20th-Century Drawings of Fanciful Flying Machines
Prussian immigrant Charles A.A. Dellschau spent most of his life in Houston working as a butcher; when he retired in 1899 at the age of 68, he turned his attention skywards and devoted himself to an entirely different endeavor: designing airships and charting the development of flight.
Art
Rubin Museum Honors Nek Chand, Visionary Artist who Built Paradise from Debris
Following India's independence in 1947, architect Le Corbusier was recruited to design Chandigarh, the country's first planned modern metropolis.
Art
Self-Taught Artist James Castle's Home Will Become a Cultural Center
This week Boise, Idaho, took ownership of the late self-taught artist James Castle's longtime home, which will be restored into a cultural facility commemorating his life and offering residency and exhibition space to local and national artists.
Art
The Original Rhinestone Cowboy's Glittery Home Will Be Reconstructed
In the late 1970s, Loy Bowlin in McComb, Mississippi, styled himself as the "Original Rhinestone Cowboy."