Self-Taught and Outsider Art

"This spectacular volume reproduces in full color some 150 pieces from the Anthony Petullo Collection, an extraordinary assemblage of paintings and drawings produced by individuals working outside the perimeter of conventional art training and traditions. Some of the pieces are fanciful, even whimsical. Others are haunting in their unembellished depiction of vulnerability and terror. Some are spare; others are crowded with figures. Some exhibit a childlike simplicity; others are almost sculpted in their precision and clarity.". "The thirty-six European and North American artists represented in Self-Taught and Outsider Art include a hospital janitor, a factory worker, concentration camp suvivors, a truck driver, a guard at the Tate Gallery, a self-proclaimed fortuneteller and healer, and a female impersonator and Hollywood screenwriter. Their "canvases" include paper, wood, long strips of calico cloth, and cardboard. One artist paints with both hands simultaneously; another finds it difficult to paint except amid the chaos of his family. Many began painting quite late in life; others had early dreams of pursuing art that were deferred by economic and family circumstances. Some have been institutionalized or incarcerated; others have struggled with terrible poverty and personal loss."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.