Create and Be Recognized is the first survey of a compelling, always surprising art form -- outsider photography. Presented here is the work of seventeen largely self-taught artists who have used photography or photographic elements in their creations ...-publisher description.

Henry Darger, an elderly recluse, spent his childhood in an Illinois asylum for feeble-minded children and his adulthood working as a janitor. He lived a quiet, nearly solitary existence, but his imaginary life was exciting, colorful and sexually provocative. When he died in Chicago in 1973, his landlady discovered in his room 300 paintings, some over 10 feet long, and a 15,000 page illustrated novel (The realms of the unreal), which told the epic...

"This is the story of Edward Deeds, a man who spent his entire adult life in mental institutions. Deeds's subtle and wonderfully imaginative drawings are populated with a remarkable cast of characters. His subjects include striking portraits, landscapes and architecture, fanciful boats, trains, and cars, birds and animals--a meticulous rendering of Deeds's inner world and his poignant tribute to a faded, genteel past. Rescued from a trash heap by...

Some 250 works explore three distinct periods in American history when mainstream and outlier artists intersected, ushering in new paradigms based on inclusion, integration, and assimilation. The exhibition aligns work by such diverse artists as Charles Sheeler, Christina Ramberg, and Matt Mullican with both historic folk art and works by self-taught artists ranging from Horace Pippin to Janet Sobel and Joseph Yoakum. It also examines a recent influx...