The female pioneers of outsider and spiritualist art in the 20th century

Outsider art is inherently a law unto itself. The term covers a wide range of work by artists who have practiced outside the artistic establishment, including self-taught artists, spiritualist artists and folk artists. These artists produce unique works based on their own individual aesthetics and parameters rather than following convention. Historically, the extraordinary life stories of these artists have at times dominated the discourse around their work, but as the canon has broadened, so has the appreciation of their work on its own merits.

‘We’ve seen a real shift in the art world. The canon is no longer just the men trained in urban art schools; it’s people from all different vantage points and perspectives,’ says Cara Zimmerman, Head of Outsider Art at Christie’s. ‘Art can come from anywhere, from anyone.’

There has long been an audience for outsider art amongst artists and younger people drawn to the raw authenticity of work made outside of the traditional art system. Outsider art has long been recognised at the highest level in institutions and biennials but now we see more blue-chip galleries and fairs joining those who have long championed this work as the market catches up.

‘We believe these artists are part of this larger conversation,’ says Zimmerman.

The following self-taught women artists have each contributed significantly to the conversation. All born at the turn of the 20th century, these artists rose to prominence in Europe and the United States at a time when interest in spiritualism and the occult was at a peak. Long overlooked, their visionary works enjoy a legacy to this day.

Madge Gill

The British artist Madge Gill (1882-1961) made drawings and textile works under the guidance of spirits. Her embroidered work Untitled is the artist’s first textile work ever to be offered at auction.

‘It’s an amazing object,’ says Zimmerman of the work, believed to be one of just thirty textiles by Gill. ‘Being an embroidery, it plays with the concept of women's work. It also engages with mediumistic art. The more you look at it, you start to see these faces and potential spirits and other things emerging.’

While Gill’s drawings on paper and fabric often depict faces and forms from nature or architecture, her textiles feature fluid, dynamic forms. Stitched intuitively and sometimes stitched with a single needle Gill channelled spirits to create them.

Gill lived through World War I and II and wished to communicate a message of peace and survival through her work.

Minnie Evans

Minnie Evans’s drawings were created from nature but also from visions and dreams. Depicting plants and landscapes as well as hallucinogenic faces and patterns, her art vibrates with colour and otherworldly aesthetics.

Evans was born in North Carolina in 1892 and lived through the Jim Crow Era and the Civil Rights Movement. In 1975 she was the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York. Society completely changed in her lifetime, and this was reflected in her late success. Inspired by gardens, Evans super-animates the natural world in her work, channelling the spiritual world and her own visions.

‘Minnie Evans was working in Airlie Gardens, North Carolina, and she perceived all of these spirits emerging out of the nature around her,’ says Zimmerman. ‘That’s definitely a theme: the mediumistic qualities of the natural world.’

In an untitled work she made in 1965, we see the growing flowers, like a dream of a garden, opening out into an imaginary or spiritual state, painted in oils and metallic paint. It has an iridescent quality.

Anna Zemánková

The practice of the Czech artist Anna Zemánková (1908–1986) is said to have been a form of pure psychic automatism. Conceived by the French Surrealist André Breton, psychic automatism refers to creating without any sense of control, as if directly from the subconscious. Zemánková created art in this way to transcend physical limitations caused by her diabetes. Zemánková suffered from depression and in 1960 took up art anew after one of her children bought her art materials to inspire her. It then became an integral part of her life.

‘I think for many of these artists art is integral to who they are, how they exist in the world and how the world exists to them, but they’re also highly skilled in their craft,’ says Zimmerman.

Rendered in pastel hues, Zemánková’s botanical forms sit between flora, fauna and abstraction. They have a dreamy quality that makes them transportive to contemplate, as if we are observing the moment the artists’ subconscious took over.

Nellie Mae Rowe

Although some cite Vincent van Gogh and even Caravaggio as proto-outsider artists, it wasn’t until the 1920s and 1930s that the idea of outsider and visionary art really took hold. At this time marked by war in Europe and injustice in the United States, Nellie Mae Rowe (1900-1982) lived in Georgia. She laboured as a child and worked as a domestic in white households for much of her life. Her drawings and dolls comment on her lived experience. Through her art — joyful tableaux that meld the real and the imaginary — she believed she was channelling God.

She treated her home and yard in Vinings, Georgia, as a living installation. Known as her ‘playhouse’, the home was famous for being adorned with her dolls and sculptures made from found materials. The house was dismantled in 1982 after her death. Today, her drawings and works on paper remain important artefacts of her oeuvre. Guided by God as well as autobiographical observations, these joyful works evoke the world she created for herself through her own artistic universe.

‘There are a lot of floral elements in Nellie May Rowe’s work,’ says Zimmerman, ‘She’s thinking about the world around her, including her built environment, but nature is part and parcel of it.’