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Art Brut: Outsider Art
I had long been interested in Outsider Art, or Art Brut (raw, unrefined art)—work by self-taught creators who might be patients in a psychiatric hospital, or physically disabled, or people on the fringe whose lifestyle does not meet societal expectations—all of whom work unmindful of public esteem and the accepted traditions of art. The very first collection of Outsider Art was assembled by the French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet in 1945 and now numbers 60,000 works at a museum in Switzerland.
On a lovely spring day in Paris in 2003, walking through the Tuileries, I passed the Jeu de Paume Museum and went in to an exhibit of Art Brut called “La Cle des Champs”—a metaphor for freedom. It turned out to be one of the most exciting and original art exhibits I had ever seen. Most interesting was the work of Aloise Corbaz, who had been institutionalized at La Rosiere Asylum in Gimel, Switzerland, for 44 years until her death. She divided her schedule between drawing and ironing. She did her drawing in secret, sometimes using the sap of petals, crunched leaves, and toothpaste. But she never seemed to finish her ironing. All this attests to the transcendent power of the creative spirit.
Recently, I learned that Samantha Mitchell works with outsider artists at the Center for Creative Works in Philadelphia. We met on a Sunday morning at the Outsider Art Fair in Chelsea, in downtown New York, and she showed me this world through her eyes. Then over lunch she spoke about her fascinating work, and I invited her to “curate” the Creative Literary Arts section of the winter 2016 issue of the journal.
Samantha is the daughter of two psychoanalysts, Margaret Black Mitchell and Stephen Mitchell. She studied painting and Russian literature at Oberlin College and received her MFA in painting from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Her interest now is in drawing and printmaking.
Here is Samantha Dylan Mitchell and her impressive work with outsider artists.