Thornton Dial, Lady Standing by Her Tiger, 1990. Watercolor on paper, 40.75 x 33 inches.

Beginning on June 21, Los Angeles residents will have a rare chance to enjoy a stunning collection of Outsider Art. The exhibition, titled Broaden Your Vision: Outsider Art 101, which features works by an array of well-known Outsider artists, including Thornton Dial, William Hawkins, Martín Ramírez, Bill Traylor, and Joseph Yoakum, is the latest gallery-sharing venture presented by the Santa Barbara-based gallery Just Folk and Los Angeles’ Peter Fetterman Gallery.

Held in Peter Fetterman’s Santa Monica digs, Broaden Your Vision aims to make Outsider Art part of the vernacular among Southern California’s collector base. According to Susan Baerwald, who owns Just Folk along with Marcy Carsey, says, “There are very few places in Los Angeles that feature Self-Taught and Outsider Art. Around the country, many of the museums have mounted shows on such artists as Bill Traylor, James Castle, Thornton Dial, and other well-regarded artists who are the ‘insiders’ of the Outsider category.  Just Folk has collected these artists for over ten years, along with lesser-known names whose art has no precedent or influence from art history and education.  We have been looking for an opportunity to introduce Los Angeles collectors, especially of contemporary art, to the works of these artists.  We sought a pop-up situation, where we rented a space for a few months to expose this material.”

William Hawkins (1895-1990), Juke Box, 1987. Enamel and mixed media on Masonite, H. 60 x W. 48 x D. 5 inches. See: Intuitive Eye, page, 39, Styling. Magazine (Tokyo) page, 41, A World of Their Own, page, 62-63. Ex Mendelsohn Collection.

Over the past year, Just Folk and Peter Fetterman Gallery have collaborated on a number of gallery-swapping exhibitions—an idea that was born while Fetterman and Baerwald were discussing the art business and the importance of location at an antiques show in New York. Baerwald says, “[Peter] had an interest in finding out if there was an audience for photography in the Santa Barbara area [and I] wanted to expose some of the Just Folk collection in Los Angeles, where there might be an interest in Self-Taught and Outsider Art.  Peter suggested swapping locations, with his gallery taking our space in Summerland, and Just Folk taking over his space in Bergamot Station.  It was decided that a few trial  exhibits, sharing the galleries, might be the efficient (and fun) way of achieving both goals.”

Bill Traylor (1854-1947), Bird on Triangular Construction, circa 1939-1942. Poster paint and graphite on cardboard, 7 x 4 ½ inches unframed. H. 17.75  x W. 14.75 inches framed.

Broaden Your Vision comes at a pivotal time as interest in Outsider Art—an umbrella term used to describe the work of self-taught artists, eccentrics, isolates, compulsive visionaries, and the mentally ill—has been on the rise. In the past year, a number of major institutions, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New-York Historical Society, and the American Folk Art Museum, have mounted exhibitions extolling the merits of Outsider Art. Just last week, the Smithsonian American Art Museum announced that it had acquired six masterpieces by Bill Taylor and would include them in a retrospective of the artist’s career slated to open in 2018. Baerwald adds, “Even the new Whitney Museum has a Bill Traylor hanging in their permanent collection.”

Ronald Lockett, Untitled, circa 1985. Tin, nails, pencil on wood.

Broaden Your Vision: Outsider 101, which runs through September 3, 2016, will be the first exhibition and sale of important Outsider Art in Los Angeles. Baerwald says, “The artists in this exhibit have been underexposed and our hope is that many more people will become aware of their talents.  We feel that many of the artists were not recognized due to their isolation and lack of association with the art world in general.  Also, many of them are African American and have been neglected by people outside their immediate regions. Our main purpose in this exhibit is to inform people about this art, give them a context for it, and encourage them to include pieces of this art in their collections.”

For more information about Broaden Your Vision: Outsider 101, please click HERE.