outsider art

noun

: art produced by untrained or naïve artists (such as children or psychiatric patients) who are not part of the mainstream art tradition

Small objects and furnishings by self-taught artists like Mr. Norton have come to be known as "outsider art."

—Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times, 3 Jan. 1991

She mixes 18th-and-19th-century folk art, outsider art, and favorite groupings of like items, such as chairs, boxes, and candle molds.

—Kathy Barnes, Country Home, July/August 2006

Word History

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined above

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