Join collector and folk art scholar, Gary Monroe for a Gallery Talk through our latest exhibition An Irresistible Urge to Create: The Monroe Family Collection of Florida Outsider Art, organized by Boca Raton Museum of Art.

Monroe comes to us with the exciting and fascinating tales of building his collection:

”When I made these journeys across Florida to seek out and connect with these outlier artists, it was before the internet and it was quite laborious,” says Monroe. During his decade-long quest across the state, Monroe personally met nearly all of these artists one by one and became part of their lives. At the time this required a major personal commitment: he had to earn their trust to be allowed into their reclusive worlds. “It was an adventure,” adds Monroe. “Especially since there were no cell phones or GPS. Just good old road maps and phone booths.”

Saturday, June 11 , 2022 | 1:00 p.m.

An Irresistible Urge to Create: The Monroe Collection of Florida Outsider Art

Photographer Gary Monroe spent over a decade in search of Florida’s renegade Outsider artists amassing an expansive collection, which includes the over 80 objects by 44 self-taught artists in this exhibition. Against the odds, these artists obsessively painted or sculpted with an urgency to escape the conflict and struggle of daily life. Florida’s Outsider Artists are sure to leave viewers spellbound with their most authentic expressions.