‘Gatecrashers: The Rise of Self-Taught Artists’ exhibition opens at the High Aug. 20

The High Museum of Art exhibition “Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America,”  which runs Aug. 20 to Dec. 11, will tour nationally to celebrate more than a dozen early-20th-century artists.

Featuring more than 60 works, “Gatecrashers” will investigate how artists including John Kane, Horace Pippin and Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses overcame class-, race- and gender-based obstacles to enter the inner sanctums of the mainstream art world, exhibiting their paintings widely and paving the way for later generations of self-taught artists. 

“As one of the first American museums to establish a department dedicated to the work of self-taught artists, the High has spent decades studying, presenting and honoring their contributions to art history,” said Rand Suffolk, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director. “With this exhibition, our audience can see how they broke barriers of access to take their rightful place among the 20th century’s most celebrated contemporary artists.”

“Gatecrashers” is curated by the High’s Merrie and Dan Boone curator of folk and self-taught art, Katherine Jentleson, and is based on the book she authored of the same name, which published in 2020.

For more information, visit high.org.