Outsider Art Fair

07/20/2026

The Barnes Foundation is pleased to celebrate the success of “Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets,” a collaboration with the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.

The exhibition brought together, for the first time, the two largest collections of Henri Rousseau’s work—combining paintings from the Barnes with those at the Musée de l’Orangerie, whose collection was assembled by Paul Guillaume, the art dealer who helped Dr. Albert C. Barnes acquire many of his Rousseau paintings.

As part of this collaboration, paintings from the Barnes collection traveled to Paris, offering new opportunities to experience Rousseau’s work in dialogue across two institutions with a shared history.

Returning to Philadelphia in August, these remarkable works can once again be seen in Dr. Barnes’s original ensembles, where they continue to tell the story of one of modern art’s most visionary self-taught artists.

Visit the Barnes Foundation this fall to experience Rousseau’s paintings back on view.

Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets, 2025. The Barnes Foundation, installation view.

07/10/2026

We congratulate Massimiliano Gioni on his appointment as Director of the New Museum New Museum ! Gioni has been a tremendous friend to the fair and advocate for Outsider artists. His championing of artists, and creators who don’t self-identify as professional artists, who go about their work without art world knowledge or support from its institutional structures, exemplifies his stature as a maverick and visionary curator. From “ Ghosts in the Machine” to the historic “Encyclopedic Palace,” to “The Keeper,” Gioni has played a major role in helping to obliterate the walls between contemporary and Outsider Art. He stands in rarified company: Harald Szeeman, Jean-Hubert Martin, Matthew Higgs, Roberta Smith, Jerry Saltz… We wish him the best and look forward with excitement to this new era for the New Museum under his leadership.

1- Outsider Art Fair 2013/OAF Talks: “A Bridge Between Two Worlds”

Left to right: Daniel Baumann, Massimiliano Gioni, Ralph Rugoff

2- Outsider Art Fair 2019/OAF Talks: “Unusual Brains: Neurodiversity and Artistic Creation”

Left to right: Massimiliano Gioni, Dr. Gerhard Dammann, Dr. Eric Kandel, Linda Carmella Sibio

3- Encyclopedic Palace, Venice, 2013

07/01/2026

06/24/2026

A selection of self-taught artists represented at the 2026 edition of Art Basel🇨🇭:

1: Kabinett presentation of Reverend Joyce McDonald at
2: Amedeo Luciano Lorenzato at Gomide&Co
3,4: Rosa Elena Curruchich at Proyectos Ultravioleta

06/04/2026

📡 OAF 2027 APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN 📡

Applications are now open for the 35th edition of the Outsider Art Fair, taking place March 18–21, 2027 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York.

Galleries, private dealers, and non-profit organizations presenting self-taught artists are invited to apply.

To apply, click the link in our bio!⁠ Applications are due July 31, 2026.

05/08/2026

Adhemar Ahmad featured by Peninsula () at the Outsider Art Fair in 2025, is the subject of a new documentary film by Ian Phillips () coming to the African Film Festival New York in May. The film tells the story of the artist’s past 20 years selling books, playing chess, and painting in upper Manhattan, and how he came to meet Peninsula owner Eric Fallen and show at the fair to great acclaim. Don’t miss “Book of Ahmad” Sat, May 16th, 12:00 PM @ Maysles Cinema. Visit africanfilmny.org for schedules and tickets.

04/29/2026

Tomorrow is the last day to view OAF’s 2026 exhibitors on OAF Digital! Check out the link in our bio to scroll, inquire, or purchase masterworks of Self-Taught Art, Art Brut, and Outsider Art.

Lee Godie
Untitled (Four Views of Lee), c. 1980
Unique photograph
5 x 3.75 inches
Courtesy Fleisher/Ollman

Selby Warren
Cutting Trees Near the River, 1972
Acrylic and enamel on board
24 x 25.25 inches
Courtesy Dutton Gallery

Artist Unknown
Sisters in Matching Attire, c. 1860
Hand-painted salt print
10 x 8 in/25 x 20 cm
Courtesy Keith de Lellis Gallery

04/24/2026

Art In Brackets, a Brooklyn-based art advisory founded by Fernanda Mazzuco, has organized a terrific show up at a pop-up space at 46 Walker in Tribeca, including works by self-taught artists Madalena Santos Reinbolt, Aurelio dos Santos and Rafael Pereira. Running through April 29, the exhibition explores artistic exchanges between Africa and Brazil, bringing together works across photography, painting, sculpture, textiles, and design. Their next show, Art Sampa: Affective Compositions, will be focused on artists and galleries based in São Paulo, or with a strong connection to the city. There will be a soft opening during the week of May 4, with public dates from May 12 to May 30.

04/21/2026

HORROR VACUI is the latest exhibition at the Treger Saint Silvestre collection - a private art brut collection on public view at the Centro de Arte Oliva in São João da Madeira, Portugal. HORROR VACUI features eighty-five anthropomorphic figures from the collection—including animals, machines, spirits, humans, monsters, and angels. Just one of several wonderful exhibitions at the Centro, HORROR VACUI is on view through January 2027 in a deep red space, resonating with the sound of Portuguese author Goncalo M. Tavares reading his text about the exhibition.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue with texts by the curator Marta Jecu and director Lara Soares .natacha.soares.

Images:

ANONYMOUS (THE BIZANGO WARRIORS)
UNTITLED, n.d.
Mixed media
83 x 33 x 13 in/ 210 x 83 x 33.5 cm

Bizango is a secret society within the Voodoo cult in Haiti. It was founded in the early 19th c by African slaves.

GUILHERMINA JÚLIA (Portugal 1909-2004)
UNTITLED, n.d.
Painted wood and recovered objects
Variable dimensions

Little is known about the life of Guilherina, who was born in the north of Portugal. She worked as a miller, she got married and lived in the same place until she was 95 years old. When she was 80, after losing her husband, she began sculpting puppets in cottonwood using an axe, knives and wood files.

POTEAU DIEUDONNÉ (Haiti, ?-2008)
UNTITLED, n.d.
Hammered metal and bicycle chain
57 x 31 x 12 in/145.5 x 79 x 29.4 cm

There is little information available about the artist. The Bosmetal method involves recycling industrial oil drums to transform the metal into sculptural pieces, using processes of burning, hammering, cutting and hand-carving with rudimentary tools.

Photos by OAF Director Elizabeth Denny

04/17/2026

For the 34th edition of the Outsider Art Fair, 6 dealers showed their work solely online as contributors to OAF Digital. See works from these exhibitors, and more, through April 30 at the link in our bio.








Paris-based Galerie Arthur Borgnis presents a selection of European art brut, including the work of the Croatian ex-pat Janko Domsic (b. 1915; d. 1983). In the 1930s, Domsic left for France, where he is believed to have spent time in prison and worked in railway construction, ending up in the Place de Clichy where he lived in poverty. His works reflect a personal mystic spirituality, combining geometric figures such as the pentagram, the sw****ka, the dollar sign, the communist hammer and sickle, the Orthodox cross with French, Croatian, and German texts. His work is included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou (Paris, FR), the LaM (Lille, FR), and the Collection de l’Art Brut (Lausanne, CH).

Henry Boxer Gallery (London, UK) shows the work of Iranian artist Mehrdad Rashidi (b.1963; Sari, IR), alongside historical Outsider art material. After leaving Iran for Germany at 20, Rashidi began to draw later in life, doodling on any and all paper he could find; old notebooks, envelopes, receipts, and discarded advertising pamphlets. Henry Boxer Gallery debuted his work in the US at the Outsider Art Fair in 2013.

Sunshine Coast-based dealer Cathy Condon features the work of Danny Bickmore (b. 1979; Alice Springs, AUS). Raised on a cattle station outside of town, he draws from  childhood experiences of rock formations and landscapes in the desert.

New York’s Deer Gallery presents a painting by the pulp artist Albert Dennis Neville (1895-1970). Most known for his pastel portraits of glamorous starlets, Neville’s work filled the covers of Silver Screen and Screenland magazines in the 1930s, early iterations of the tabloid.

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