Art brut and naive art

What is art brut?

Art brut, literally “raw art”, is work made outside institutions and the academic frame. Without training, without regard for rules or the trends of the day. It is often made by people with mental illness or by artists standing entirely apart from the art world, purely out of an inner need to create. Naive art, with its directness, is close to it. And isn't that unbridled quality precisely what makes it so appealing?

When and how did it come about?

The term art brut was coined by the French painter Jean Dubuffet in the middle of the twentieth century, while collecting and studying the work of people outside the official art world. He was fascinated that these works were made entirely freely, unburdened by the taste of galleries and academies. He thus gave a name to something that had always been there, but which for a long time no one had properly noticed.

Who are its main figures?

The founding figure of the term itself is Jean Dubuffet, who discovered art brut and named it. In the Czech context it includes Anna Zemánková, whose fragile yet compelling drawings of flowers are among the strongest the domestic scene offers in this field. What these artists share is that they worked outside the mainstream and, despite that — or precisely because of it — with great individuality.

How does it do on the market and how is it traded?

Interest in art brut on the market is growing, which even a few decades ago was far from a given. Collectors and institutions are gradually discovering that the authenticity and unruliness of these works have a lasting value. For anyone looking for art off the beaten track, this is a field that deserves attention.

— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club