Roger Cardinal: Outsider Art (eBook)

This is the first republishing of Roger Cardinal’s classic book since it first appeared in 1972.

Not only was this the first text in English on the subject of art brut but it also introduced the term 'outsider art' which has subsequently been internationally accepted as the generic term for self-taught visionary art. Raw Vision magazine is proud to present Cardinal’s seminal text here for the first time in 50 years, as revolutionary now as it was when it was first published.

Cardinal’s work was so ahead of its time that it was completely ignored by baffled critics, and poor sales resulted in the book being remaindered just a couple of years after it was published. The huge exhibition Outsiders that Cardinal co-created at London’s Hayward Gallery a few years later, in 1979, was not so much ignored as heavily slated by critics who attacked the ground-breaking event as the 'daubings of madmen’.

Prejudice against outsider art has now given way to admiration, influence and appropriation. Yet few people have read one of the most important books on the subject, the title of which over the last 50 years has defined and spawned hundreds of museum exhibitions, thousands of books and articles, countless galleries and collectors, and helped to transform the understanding of a genre that was hidden and ignored into one that is now respected and appreciated around the world.

At last the original book is now available in digital format with all the pictures updated and in colour.