Art Collections and Art Therapy

Last update: 15 October 2012,
by Maureen Bell

Library members have online access to a number of journals in this area. You'll find them in the e-Journals A-Z list at the top right of this page.

American Journal of Art Therapy
Arts in Psychotherapy

All In The Mind - 27 January 2002 - Creativity, Brilliance and Madness
All In The Mind - 12 November 2005 - Grandad is an artist! Dementia and the creative mind.
All In The Mind - 11 March 2006 - Outsider art
All In The Mind - 14 October 2006 - Reclaiming imagination: art, psychosis and the creative mind
All In The Mind - 13 October 2007 - Art in the Asylum: orphans of the art world? Part 1 of 2 (The Cunningham Dax Collection)
All In The Mind - 20 October 2007 - Art in the Asylum: orphans of the art world? Part 2 of 2 (The Prinzhorn Collection)
These are transcripts and audios from All in the Mind, a series on ABC Radio National. Other programs can be found here.

American Art Therapy Association
Information about art therapy, and resources for therapists.

Art Enables • Outsider Art Inside The Beltway
Art Enables is a program for adults with developmental and/or mental disabilities from throughout the Washington D.C. area.

Art Therapy
A web page by Vicky Barber, a British art therapist.

Art Therapy: Information About Art Therapy and Some of the People Who Are Helped by Art Therapy
A web page by Donna Betts, a Canadian art therapist.

The Arts and Healing Network
A site with links to a large range of resources, including the works of individual artists, community projects, and bulletin boards.

Arts of Life
Arts of Life is a non-profit studio founded in January 2000, in Chicago, to provide a workspace for artists with developmental disabilities.

Arts Project Australia
Arts Project Australia was founded in 1974 with the express purpose of exhibiting the artwork in a manner that accords artists with an intellectual disability the same dignity and respect as other artists.

Australian and New Zealand Art Therapy Association (ANZATA)
Includes a selection of links of interest for art therapists.

The Awakenings Project
The Awakenings Project is a consumer run organisation which assists people with mental health issues in developing their creative abilities through art in all its forms. It also aims to raise public awareness of the creative talents and contributions of people living with psychiatric disorders.

Borderland Voices
Borderland Voices is an arts and mental health group based in the Staffordshire Moorlands which works with any interested adults.

Child Abuse Quilts - Revealing and Healing the Pain of Child Abuse
These quilts were made by subscribers to the QuiltArt mailing list and other on-line quilters, from April to October 1998. Each image is accompanied by a comment from the artist.

Creative Growth
The Creative Growth Art Center's gallery and studio feature art by physically, mentally, and developmentally disabled adults.

Creative Spirit Art Centre
The Creative Spirit Art Centre provides art education and studio space to people with disabilities. Their on line gallery features some of the art works.

Creativity Explored
A nonprofit visual arts center in San Francisco, where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.

f r e s h a r t • welcome!
Fresh art is a non-profit organization, whose purpose is to provide expanded artistic, personal development, and entrepreneurial opportunities to New York City artists with special needs.

House of Artists Gugging
In the late 1950s, psychiatrist Leo Navratil of the Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic had his patients produce drawings for experimental purposes. The following year he discovered artistically talented individuals in his ward. In 1970 the first exhibition of the "Gugging Artists" took place in a Vienna gallery. The "Center for art- and psychotherapy" was founded in 1981, and artistically talented patients were invited to live in the house. In 1980s the name was changed to "House of Artists".

Infinitec - Learn - Art
Infinitec, Inc. is a joint effort of the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Greater Chicago and United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Inc., Washington D.C.

NAEMI
Since 1988, NAEMI (National Art Exhibitions by the Mentally Ill) has held an annual nation wide search of psychiatric institutions to identify mentally disabled artists and give them the opportunity to exhibit their work, receive recognition, validation, vocational rehabilitation and self confidence and generate an income through the sale of their art work.

National Arts Disability Center | Visit the Artists
Links from the National Arts and Disabilities Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Neighborhood Center of the Arts
Established in 1984, The Neighborhood Center of the Arts, in Grass Valley, California, provides developmentally disabled adults with a place where they can make friends, explore their abilities, and gain a sense of accomplishment.

The Outsider Pages: Folk and Outsider Art
From the Interesting Ideas web site.

Passion Works Studio
Passion Works Studio, in Athens, southeastern Ohio, supports collaboration between artists with and without developmental disabilities.

Project Ability - Centre for Developmental Arts
Project Ability grew out of a year-long project held in Glasgow, in 1981, to mark the International Year of Disabled People, and was registered as a company limited by guarantee with charitable status in 1984.

Raw Vision
An online journal of outsider art.

A Review of Evaluation in Community-Based Art for Health Activity in the UK
This review, by John Angus, was also published by the Health Development Agency in 2002.

The Studio, a studio and gallery for visionary artists
The Studio is located in Eureka, California.

Through Children's Eyes: A Collection of Drawings and Stories from the WHO Global SChool Contest on Mental Health
World Health Organization, 2001.

VSA arts
VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974. With headquarters in Washington.C., VSA arts is devoted to creating a society where people with disabilities can learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts.

Artists and Galleries

abcd art brut : self taught outsider and folk art
A beautiful web site. The collection, constituted by Bruno Decharme, represents about 200 of the most important creators from the 19th century until the present and it contains more than 2000 works.

The Anthony Petullo Collection of SELF-TAUGHT AND OUTSIDER ART
The site includes interesting biographical notes on the artists and their work.

Anton Haardt Folk Art Gallery
This is a commercial gallery specialising in Southern folk art, outsider art, raw art, art brut, self taught art, folk and outsider folk art , and intuitive art.

L'Aracine et l'Art Brut accueil
A French collection of Art Brut.

ArtBrut.com
The site of a private dealer (Beverly Kaye) specializing in Outsider Art, Vernacular Art, Art of Trauma, Visionary, Folk, and Found Art, illustrated with 100 images and text by both the psychiatric and art communities.

The Bethlem Gallery
The Bethlem Gallery aims to display contemporary art work by service users who are or have been at the Bethlem and Maudsley NHS Trust.

Carl Hammer Gallery
This gallery contains much outsider art as well as art from the contemporary mainstream.

Charlotte Zander Museum- Schloss Bönnigheim
In 1996 Charlotte Zander established her museum with over 3,500 pictures and sculptures in a baroque castle near Stuttgart.

Collection de l'Art Brut
From the Art Brut Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. As well as its permanent collection, founded by the late Jean Dubuffet (who coined the term Art Brut to describe art created by people who worked entirely outside the boundaries of official culture, particularly insane asylum inmates), the gallery has regular temporary exhibitions of art brut from artists around the world.

Cunningham Dax Collection
The Cunningham Dax Collection is a collection of over ten thousand creative works by people who have experienced mental illness or psychological trauma. Dr Eric Cunningham Dax began collecting these works in 1946 for the purposes of mental health research and education.

Donna Balma
Donna Balma is a Canadian artist. The notes on her web page refer to her "consistent struggle...to transform the human body from what had become a site of mental and spiritual despair into a mystical and sacred source of pleasure."

Donna Williams
Dionna Williams is an Australian autistic author, artist, and musician.

The Flying Pig . Contemporary Art Gallery and Greenspace . Algoma . Wisconsin (WI)
A gallery with a special interest in outsider art.

Gaia Museum Outsider Art.
Includes a collection consisting of art from Denmark and other mostly European countries. All the pieces are created by people with learning disabilities. The art pieces have been collected since 1999 by LKU, the national association of art schools for people with learning disabilities.

Galerie St. Etienne | Self-Taught and Outsider Art
Glaerie St Etienne is in New York.

Henry Boxer Art Gallery
A selection of works from the Henry Boxer Gallery in Surrey, U.K. Henry Boxer has dealt in Outsider and Visionary Art since the 1970's.

Iris Gill Art Gallery
Iris Gill's gallery exhibits her expressionistic paintings, drawings, and assemblages.

Marcia Weber Art Objects,
This gallery was founded in 1991, and buys and sells rare and unusual one-of-a-kind works of art created by self-taught artists.

Michael Jurogue Johnson
Michael has Down syndrome. He is a full time artist, and has his own web site.

New England Village Living Center Gallery and Artists
New England Village is a community in Pembroke, Massachusetts, for adults with mental retardation and related developmental disabilities.

NIAD Art Center
NIAD'S (National Institute of Art and Disabilities) mission is to provide an art program for people with developmental disabilities.

Outsider Art .info ... Outsider Art Online Exhibition Gallery
Outsider Art.info is an international exhibition of art from outside the art world.

Outsider Art Museum
The Collection of the Moscow Museum of Outsider Art was founded in 1989. Today it remains a museum dedicated exclusively to collecting and exhibiting Outsider Art in Russia.

Prinzhorn Collection
Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933) was an art historian and doctor. During the years after the First World War, he built up, with the support of Karl Wilmanns, the head of the Psychiatric Department in Heidelberg, a unique collection of works from psychiatric hospitals.

Project Return Art Gallery
The Project Return Art program promotes the artistic talents of adults with mental illness through the exhibition and sale of their works of art. Project Return, located in Tampa, Florida, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for adults with mental illness through education, vocational training, and supportive housing services.

Raw Art by Kelly Moore
Originally from Arkansas, Kelly Moore is a self taught artist who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Vincent van Gogh Gallery
An amazing site, with van Gogh's letters, as well as his art.