Museum van de Geest | Outsider Art

Visit the permanent collection and don’t forget about the temporary exhibitions. These artists were not held back by the traditional conventions of art and their pure work depicts an unfiltered reflection of their inner world.

Prominent works by national and international Outsider artists

Over the last few years, Outsider Art has been making real advances into the art world. No surprise there, since this art movement knows how to grab you and never let you go.

The Outsider Art movement gained much notoriety after the First World War. In 1922, psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933) published his influential book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the Mentally Ill), which featured a large collection of works created by people in psychiatric institutions. This book served as an inspiration to many artists, including Salvador Dalí, Karel Appel and Asger Jorn.

In 1929, the Museum of Modern Art in New York was one of the first museums to show interest in this art form. Curator Alfred Barr considered self-taught art one of the three ‘major movements in modern art’, the other two being surrealism and abstract art.

In 1949, the French artist Jean Dubuffet came up with the term ‘Art Brut’, ‘raw art’. The English art historian Roger Cardinal introduced the term ‘Outsider Art’ in 1972.

In 2013, the Venice Biennale caused a breakthrough for Outsider Art in the international art world. The founding of the Museum of the Mind | Outsider Art in the Hermitage Amsterdam has offered a permanent opportunity to witness the development of Outsider Art in the Netherlands since March 16, 2016.