French artist Jean Dubuffet (1945) used the term art brut for the first time to label art by those outside of the norms of regular society, especially those who were mentally ill, visionaries or eccentric in various ways whose raw or innocent world vision he admired. In turn, he sought to emulate these qualities in his own work, and in 1948 he established a society to encourage the study of Art Brut. This kind of art has also been referred to as “outsider art;” that designation has been applied to Dubuffet’s own work and that of Adolf Wölfli and others.
Even before then however, there had been some interest in the creative work of this group of people. After German psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn published his study about art by mentally ill people Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (1922) interest in the artistic creations of these ‘outsiders’ began to grow. Prinzhorn primarily stressed their unconscious, instinctual creativity, non deliberateness and authenticity.
