Accidental Genius

This dazzling and wide-ranging collection of self-taught art celebrates pure, uninhibited expression.

Encompassing nearly 300 works, the Anthony Petullo Collection is one of the most impressive compilations of outsider art in the United States. This exhibition catalog commemorates the gift of the collection to the Milwaukee Art Museum. It includes luminous watercolor and pencil drawings by Henry Darger; former slave and share-cropper Bill Traylor’s haunting paintings; the meticulously beautiful graphic works of Martin Ramirez, along with numerous other pieces by lesser-known artists such as James Lloyd, an English laborer; Domenico Zindato, an Italian draftsman; and Rosemarie Koczy, a former prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, among many others. Each of these artists spent much of their lives out of the public eye, unaware of notions of artistic trends or celebrity. Their inherent talent and their intense devotion to their art are gloriously evident in this stunningly illustrated and wonderfully diverse volume.