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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Six Decades Collecting Self-Taught Art: Revealing a Diverse and Rich Artistic Narrative

Dec 17, 2020 – Jan 2, 2021
2 Lincoln Square, New York, NY 10023, United States

Until a few years ago, Audrey B. Heckler’s 500 piece collection of Outsider art was little known. Now she is donating the entirety of it to the American Folk Art Museum. “I do not collect contemporary art,” Heckler explained in 2019. “I find it very specious, overblown in price, and I just don’t like it as much. Folk/Outsider art is much simpler and easier to look at.” Among the works she has amassed are Achilles G. Rizzoli’s breathtaking drawing of Milan’s Duomo cathedral, a stylzed granite sculpture by Barbus Müller, and Sam Doyle’s Penn School Drumer 1920. —E.C.

Achilles G. Rizzoli, “Mother Symbolically Represented/ The Kathredal,” 1936 © Visko Hatfield, from The Hidden Art (Rizzoli Electa, 2017).