Word.ws English Dictionary

outsider art

outsider art noun: art by untrained artists, outside of the institutional mainstream.

Noun (1)

outsider art (uncountable)

  1. Art by untrained artists, outside of the institutional mainstream.
    • Outsider Art is increasingly recognized as a representation of the purest and most direct form of artistic creation.2006, Liz Aggiss, Billy Cowie ed., Anarchic Dance, Routledge, →ISBN, page 48
    • The concepts of raw art and outsider art were typical of a time when oppositional politics still infused artistic and academic discourses.2014, Ian Buchanan, Lorna Collins, Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 57

Noun (2) capitalized: Outsider Art

Outsider Art (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of outsider art.

Examples of outsider art in a sentence

  • Inherent in all artistic activity, these dialogical mechanisms become particularly striking in outsider art and can serve as a basis for fighting stigma.2015, Ekaterina Sukhanova, Hans-Otto Thomashoff, Body Image and Identity in Contemporary Societies, Routledge, →ISBN, page 11:
  • The principal problem with Outsider Art is the most obvious: it is so often so bad.2015, Adam Geczy, Jacqueline Millner, Fashionable Art, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 160:

Forms of outsider art

alternative formOutsider Art

Origin of outsider art

Coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972.

Words formed from outsider art

Questions about outsider art

What does outsider art mean?
Outsider art means art by untrained artists, outside of the institutional mainstream.
How do you use outsider art in a sentence?
Inherent in all artistic activity, these dialogical mechanisms become particularly striking in outsider art and can serve as a basis for fighting stigma.
What part of speech is outsider art?
Outsider art is a noun.

Words near outsider art in the dictionary

  1. outside-forwards
  2. outsidea
  3. outsided
  4. outsideness
  5. outsider
  6. outsider art
  7. outsider artist
  8. outsider artists
  9. outsider music
  10. outsider musician
  11. outsider musicians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: outsider art (page history and authors); Outsider Art (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “outsider art.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/outsider_art. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.