Things have changed since I started maintaining these links in 1994. At that point you could count the number of Web sites with any reference to outsider art on one hand. There was a FolkArt & Craft Exchange site (still there). The Electric Gallery Folk Art Wing (also still there) and a few other links. Now this page alone has more than 250 links. Some of the links here are outdated, a reflection of my diminished attention. And lots of newer sites are missing.
The original idea was just to create a central place for my own use where I could track outsider-related sites. As long as I was collecting links, I figured it might help a few folks to share them. For a while this page served as a pretty good clearinghouse for relevant destinations. Over time it also became a magnet for people looking to get Web exposure for their art, or for the art of friends and relatives.
That growing stream of requests to add links to my gallery (sic) gave me some sympathy for the gallery workers deluged with slides of folks who fancy themselves talented or, in this field, outsider (and sometimes both). Sometimes the inquiries are on target, but more often they come from people who clearly hasn't taken the time to get an idea of where they're sending them.
Although I have an interest in undiscovered and underappreciated art, not being a gallery, dealer or even a particularly aggressive collector, the payoff from this exercise is strictly intellectual. Given the time it takes, plus the emergence elsewhere of better places to go to find these kind of links, I'm retiring from the outsider link business.
I'll leave in place the sites you see here now (last updated in 2003). Eventually they may have some historical value.
Folk and outsider art online
On the Web, accumulations of personal snapshots, academic essays, extensive catalogs of folk art for sale and the usual range of miscellaneous images, links and commentaries are bringing new information and opportunities for appreciating work of importance. Even the sites that mostly cover familiar ground can offer unexpected windows into the field, unbound by an apparatus of art appreciation that might normally exclude these personal selections. The Web lets would-be publishers, exhibitors and artists evade the vagaries and the high expenses of print publishing and gallery shows.
New
Wisconsin's Kohler Foundation has established itself as the leading protector of art environments, from Fred Smiths' Concrete Park in the north to Kenny Hill's sculpture extravaganza in Louisiana. Kohler's site includes background, directions and photo galleries for a number of the country's most important sites.
K.S. Art maintains a distinctive roster of interesting artists, including one of my favorites, Roy Hamilton.
Hill of Crosses is a great folk-religious site in Lithuania.
Explore the work of the late Wisconsin dentist and prolific artist Rudy Rotter.
Sid Boyum, another Wisconsin artist, is the subject of a movie as well as a good deal of neighborhood activity, according to this Web site.
Everything's in French, but Les Bâtisseurs De L'imaginaire features environments such as Le Palais Ideal Du Facteur Cheval alongside the work of Antonio Guadi, among others.
Artraw has a weird perspective on artistic movements, since it interprets art brut as one, but it it does feature some work by important artists, including Fleury Joseph Crépin and Augustin Lesage.
Artesian Arts is associated with the Scottish magazine devoted to visionary, intuitive and grassroots artists.
Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations is a Kansas City Public Television show devoted to art and oddities of the roadside. The show has documented dozens of self-taught artists, environments and eccentric sites, centering on the Midwest but slowly extending to other regions. The Web site includes an episode guide, details on selected places and people, plus an order form for six seasons worth of video tapes. Rare Visions can get a bit corny, but it is entertaining and for the most part does justice to the fascinating material, and it deserves support. A book also is coming out and can be previewed here.
L'Aracine is one of the great collections of art brut. The site has a modest selection of images as well as text in French.
ABCD, another great art brut collection, has a more polished site, an English version, and lots of images.
Major institutions
Outsider Art Online: An obvious starting place is the Web site sponsored by Chicago's Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. Outsider Art Online includes electronic versions of articles from Intuit's newsletter, information about Intuit and its programs, a worldwide directory of galleries and museums and the most complete calendar of outsider-oriented museum and gallery shows to be found on the Internet.
Jane's Addictions is easily the best outsider and folk art resource on the Web. It features the most comprehensive listings of both individual artists and environments, with every link imaginable. If you have been a user of this page, you need to consider changing your loyalties. I'm definitely ready to retire from the directory business.
The art brut museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, has weighed in with the most important outsider site on the Web. The site is lavishly populated with images of works by some of the century's most greatest artists. The text is weighted toward French, but there are some English translations.
L'Aracine is one of the great collections of art brut. The site has a modest selection of images as well as text in French.
ABCD, another great art brut collection, has a more polished site, an English version, and lots of images.
The Prinzhorn Collection: Hans Prinzhorn's collection of art by the mentally ill, gathered early in this century, is one of the milestones in the history of outsider art.
Raw Vision is the world's leading outsider art magazine and shares stories and images from its most recent issues.
The Folk Art Society of America's attractive site offers selections from the Folk Art Messenger, as well as an events calendar and folk-art books for sale.
The Museum of American Folk Art in New York has joined the other big folk art groups with a Web site. They've got Folk Art magazine highlights and exhibition information, including a virtual reality view of a 19th Century decoy.
The site for Gugging, the Austrian residence/workshop for a number of important artists, has bibliographic and other useful information as well as short biographies of the artists and samples of their work.
Creative Growth is the pioneering Bay Area program for artists with disabilities. It has facilitated the work of Dwight Mackintosh and Judith Scott, among others.
The American Visionary Art Museum: Baltimore's museum devoted to outsider and visionary art currently has added a lot of substance to its site. The current show is "The End is Near," an exhibition of apocalyptic art. A visit is recommended.
The Grassroots Art Center in Lucas Kansas, besides being adjacent to the monumentally important Garden of Eden environment, boasts a collection featuring artists whose work is not widely accessible elsewhere. The Kansas Grassroots Art Association has been a leader in the preservation of environments.
The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art include oral histories with a wide variety of artists, dealers and collectors. Some are available at this site.
The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe also has weighed in with a site that includes generous quantities of images from current shows and the permanent collection.
Galleries and dealers
American Artistry in Dallas has a stable that includes a lot of the old reliable Southern folk/outsider types (Jim Sudduth, Howard Finster, etc. but also a number of not-so-well-known but interesting artists, mostly from Texas. There are lots of pictures, though a one-page index to the artists would be a nice addition.
America Oh Yes! gallery has an extensive site with lots of inventory and a good deal of explanatory information.
American Pie offers a selection of self-taught, visionary and folk art.
The Ames Gallery in Berkeley, Calif., consistently has some of of the best folk and outsider art available, and this very usable site does it justice.
anonymo galleries features a bunch of entertaining and eccentric work on its site, which includes a mixture of trained and self-taught artists.
Louisville's The Anonymous Artist gallery aspires to bring attention to the work of unknown and forgotten artists. The works on the site should delight any thrift store art lover, with many of the pieces seeming to represent the efforts of folks who worked just a little too hard in conventional genres like landscapes and still lifes.
Barbara Archer's Atlanta gallery includes work by such stalwarts as Mose Tolliver and Jim Sudduth, but also artists not as widely exposed on the Web, including Dilmus Hall and J.B. Murray.
A substantial collection of work is available at ArtBrut.com.
Everything at the site of Brussels-based Art en Marge is in French. English speakers can still appreciate the images, however.
Art Haus Gallery offers videos on some of the self-taught artists whose work it features, including Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Purvis Young and Lonnie Holley.
Artisans Gallery: The people at this out-of-the-way Alabama gallery are doing an exemplary job selling folk art on the Web; you can do serious shopping there. A set of online catalogs include detailed descriptions of the material on offer, and lots of images. Most importantly, the stuff they're selling is good. They have a substantial inventory of tramp art, a selection of prison art, separate lists covering carvings, quilts, and signs, banners and cutouts, and a handful of pieces by well-known artists. Their prices are reasonable, and there is reference material and information on folk art resources on and off the Web.
At Home Gallery in Greensboro, N.C., has a good deal of southern folk art nicely organized.
The Art of Haiti by MedaliaArt has taken residence at http://www.medalia.net/
The Attic Gallery in Vicksburg includes Mississippi artist Earl Wayne Simmons on its roster.
Barrister's Gallery in New Orleans is a source of work by the very interesting Roy Ferdinand and Welmon Sharlehorn, among others,
The work at Black Sheep Gallery is definitely on the folky side, but this large and well-presented collection of material from Nova Scotia is worth a look if you're interested in folk art, especially wood carving.
Henry Boxer operates an imporant gallery in the UK, including work by a long list of major outsiders and others, including Scottie Wilson, Madge Gill, Edmund Monsiel and Malcolm McKesson, as well as George Grosz. His rich site get special points for including the work of Louis Wain, whose signature cat illustrations became more and more frenetic, and ultimately abstract, as Wain's mind failed him.
The text is German, but Galerie Susi Brunner is an art brut venue in Zurich, Switzerland.
The Robert Cargo Folk Art Gallery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, features several southern artists, including Jimmie Sudduth and B.F. Perkins.
Carrie Art Collection in Haiti handles Voodoo flags and bottles and a great deal of other Haitian art.
Grey Carter Objects of Art is a nicely designed site that features a good sampling of work from Justin McCarthy and Sybil Gibson, among others.
The sophisticated Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York has a good many artists online, including Chris Hipkiss, whose elaborate drawings are some of the most interesting outsider work being done. You'll also find interesting work by Jon Serl, Anthony Joseph Salvatore and others.
Creative Heart Gallery's self-taughtart.com has some not-so-common-on-the-Web offerings (Bill Traylor, Bessie Harvey) along with better-than average work by some of the usual southern suspects.
Creativity Explored, one of a group of agencies in the Bay Area devoted to artistic effort by disabled adults, features a number of artists on its robust site.
The Dixie Folk Art gallery in Florida is stocked with an electic collection of work, from the the Highwaymen group to Mama Johnson.
Andrew Edlin Gallery includes work by Albert Hoffman, Malcah Zeldis and Henry Darger.
Paul Edelstein Gallery features works by both well-known masters (Clementine Hunter) and more obscure, but interesting talents (Belle Mathis).
The Electric Gallery Folk Art Wing: A collection of mostly international folk art, plus a ton of work by the visionary artist Robert Roberg .
Epstein/Powell's site includes a page on Justin McCarthy, one of my favorite artists.
First Street Gallery Art Center in Claremont, Calif., is a non-profit program that encourages art by people with disabilities.
FocalArt Gallery is a source of a lot of work that is not everywhere else on the Web. Roy Ferdinand and Ted Gordon are well-represented, and there are pieces by Wellmon Sharlhorne and Stephen Anderson, among many others.
Folk art museums and private collections, presented by the Folk Art and Craft Exchange.
Folk Art Net is a new online gallery with a modest inventory but definite potential.
The Folk Art Show, from the people behind Atlanta's Modern Primitive Gallery, is a well-presented site developed in conjunction with a big Internet auction scheduled on Ebay starting Aug. 15.
Folkyart.com is another source for work by a long list of self-taught mostly southern artists.
Galerie Jacques in Ann Arbor has a site well supplied with images of straight-ahead Eurostyle Art Brut.
Galerie St. Etienne is best known for bring Grandma Moses to the art world's attention. It's a high-end venue for work by important artists, self-taught and otherwise, including John Kane, George Grosz, Sue Coe and Henry Darger.
Garde Rail Gallery in Seattle sells art by a number of self-taught artists, well-known and less so, with the less so being especially interesting.
Nashville's Ghost Dog Gallery has mounted a colorful site.
The Gilley's Gallery site features works by Clementine Hunter, David Butler and Sam Doyle.
GoodArtGallery's roster includes Eileen Doman and Levent Isik.
Vermont's GRACE (Grass Roots Art and Community Effort) has a mission to "discover, develop and promote visual art produced primarily, but not exclusively, by elderly self taught artists in rural Vermont."
Graves Country Gallery in Lodi, Calif., handles work by a number of southern artists.
The site for Anton Haardt Gallery, the important dealer now based in New Orleans, gives easy access to material by southern artists such as Mose Tolliver and Jimmy Lee Sudduth, as well as artists not so commonly seen on the Web, such as Juanita Rogers and Roy Ferdinand Jr.
Carl Hammer, Chicago's leading dealer of outsider and folk art, has placed a broad selection of his high-quality inventory on the Web. The site includes great anonymous pieces as well as work by important artists such as Henry Darger, William Dawson and Lee Godie.
The English version of Atelier Galerie Herenplaats's Web site is non-functional, but the art is not too hard to find.
There's been a link here for a good long time to Gene Beecher's space in the Hustontown Gallery, but for some reason I neglected the broader site, which features several other interesting artists in addition to a group of anonymous works.
Some of the work at the IF Art Gallery from Ukraine bears careful viewing, maybe even purchasing if you have a high tolerance for exotic transactions.
Indigo Arts Gallery is a source for African haircut signs, Haitian art and other works from abroad.
Inside Out Productions is a gallery devoted to the work of artists with developmental disabilities.
K.S. Art maintains a distinctive roster of interesting artists, including one of my favorites, Roy Hamilton.
La Luz deJesus Gallery is mostly showing not-outsider art, but their specialty is the kind of eccentric and visionary work that likely appeal to fans of the same.
David Leonardis Gallery has a great deal of Howard Finster work for sale.
Lindsay Gallery in Columbus, OH, maintains an interesting roster of artists on its site, including William Hawkins, Eddie Arning, Lee Godie, William Dawson and Popeye Reed.
The Macondo gallery in Pittsburgh carries non-Western art, including a ton of Haitian art and bottle-cap art from Guatemala.
Main Street Gallery in Clayton, GA, shows the work of the underappreciated Chicago sculptor Derek Webster and the
entertaining Mama Johnson, along with a mix of other artists, some lesser known and some southern folk art stalwarts.
The folk art section at Main Street Gallery (Starkville, Miss.) includes works by Jim Sudduth, R.A. Miller and Earl Wayne Simmons.
The Matter of Perception site features a great deal of work from a 1998 show of work by artists with disability.
Mayor's Office Folk
Art Gallery is an outlet for work by three Alabama artists, Buddy Snipes, John Henry Toney and Butch Anthony.
Canada's Minivan Gallery includes the interesting spaceship art of Lee King.
Modern Primitive Gallery in Atlanta is usually worth a visit in person or online.
Mark F. Moran Antiques: The inventory here includes a good deal of interesting folk art.
The Outsider Gallery, a project of Susan Eshelman's Art Vision International.
The OutsidersArt Gallery in Litchfield, Conn., maintains a lengthy roster of artists, some well-known and some not.
Aron Packer handles some of the most interesting work to be had from an art dealer in Chicago.
Passion Works Studio in Athens, Ohio "provides artistic and collaborative opportunities for people with developmental disabilities."
Pottery Plus handles work from a number of southern potters and painters.
PrisonZone: Website for Prison Graphics sells works from several inmate artists.
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, one of the the country's leading dealers in outsider material, has a very strong web site with lots of content.
Rosehips Folk Art Gallery: This Cleveland, Ga., gallery has a roster of work by both well-established southern folk artists, including Mose Tolliver, Howard Finster and Lanier Meaders, and by recent interesting discoveries like Mary Proctor and Cornbread.
Luise Ross Gallery in New York shows a number of artists whose work is not spread all over the Internet, including Leroy Person, Albert Hoffman, Louis Monza and Minnie Evans. This site includes samples of their work as well as exhibition histories.
San Angel Folk Art specializes in art from Mexico and Latin America, though they also have a good selection of work by Hubert Walters.
Sardine is a nicely design Swiss gallery that featured a mix of outsider, folk and other art as well as some relevant texts..
Judy Saslow is one of Chicago premier collectors of outsider art; her gallery is especially strong in European material.
Select Southern Pottery is a source for face jugs and other folk ceramics.
Selftaughtart.com, from Atlanta Folk Fest promoter Steve Slotin, is back. The site promises gallery and auction selection, once it's fully populated, and looks to be a major player in the field.
Bruce Shelton specializes in interesting work at a fair price. Now you can reach him via Shelton Gallery Online.
The Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery in Winter Park, Fla., features southern artists include Ruby Williams, Sybil Gibson and Mary Proctor.
Sholl Antiques of Norwood, NY, has created the first tramp art site I'm aware of. But most importantly, they've stocked with it some fabulous work.
Among the artists featured by Signature Studio XI are Harold Crowell and Brooks Yeomans.
The Splendid Peasant has a fine online display of traditional folk art, though I wish they would post prices.
Kimball Sterling: A Tennessee-based auctioneer, he does periodic sales of folk and outsider art. His site includes a schedule of upcoming events. Sterling is now conducting monthly auctions as well.
There are lot of institutional art programs and they're not automatically interesting.Street Life Gallery in Seattle has some interesting material on display.
TAG Art Gallery features an eclectic selection of artists, ranging from the art brut canon (Madge Gill) to contemporary apocalyptic master Norbert Kox.
Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery in Winter Park, FL, is showing work by a number of stalwarts, including Ruby Williams, Jim Sudduth, Ab the Flagman and Mary Proctor.
Tom and Paula van Deest, who hail from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, come up with some of the best folk/outsider art and related antiques to be found in the Midwest. A visit to their Web site is highly recommended.
Tamara Hendershot, owner of the excellent Miami Beach gallery Vanity Novelty Garden, is associated with a site devoted to her work in progress on Florida outsider artists, which she is writing with Jeffrey Knapp. There are several interesting and not widely known artists featured here with photos and biographies.
The Very Special Arts Gallery, Albuquerque.
Visionaryart.com has inventory from a number of artists and interesting photo-and-text reports from several folk art fairs.
There's lots of lovely stuff at Wares for Art, which is dedicated to "paintings, works on paper, sculptures, ceramics, jewelry, glass, books, cards, toys, clocks and objects that all comprise the FOLK ART OF THE 21st CENTURY - the Self Taught Art of down to Earth, (and sometimes elsewhere) real people."
Artists on display at Weathervane Folk Art include compulsive calendarist Z.B. Armstrong and Ralf Griffin.
Webb Gallery in Waxahachie is a leading center for Texas outsider and folk art.
Marcia Weber has a good gallery for southern folk art and a strong site. She has substantial biographies and multiple images for a number of artists.
Work by a number of self-taught artists, including Mr. Imagination and Mary Proctor, is available at Who-Ha Da-Da
Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery: An exceptionally polished site out of Austin, Texas, this also has a number of interesting works for sale by both name-brand folk artists and lesser-known creators, including Reginald Mitchell and Cyril Billiot.
Ginger Young has joined the group of well-established outsider-art dealers who have migrated to the Web. Her site includes an extensive, now illustrated, inventory of work, and pictures and biographical capsules of a substantial roster of artists.
The Web site of quilt expert Shelly Zegart includes numerous beautiful quilts, nicely photographed and for sale. Plus she still has a couple of pieces of Clarence and Grace Woolsey bottlecap art available.
Lois Zetter appeared on Jeopardy for five days in the 1960s, her Web site says, but more to the point is the selection of work presented very elegantly at the Zetter Collection site. It reflects a good eye for interesting material.
Germany's Zimmer Gallery focuses on European naive art.