American Folk Art Museum Exhibition Challenges 'Outsider Art' Label

The American Folk Art Museum presents an exhibition that allows self-taught artists to speak for themselves, critiquing the term 'outsider art' coined by academic Roger Cardinal in 1972. The show highlights how the concept historically excluded non-Western traditions, focusing instead on late 19th- and early 20th-century Sunday painters like Henri Rousseau, William Doriani, and Morris Hirshfield. Mid-20th-century collectors Jean and Howard Lipman helped introduce European-American self-taught artists to institutions like the Whitney Museum and High Museum, but often overlooked traditions such as Haudenosaunee art and Hopi Kachina carving.