‘Outsider art’ on the auction block

Most of the self-taught artists whose work is now collected as “outsider art” never set foot in a fancy New York auction house, but they are finally having their day at Christie’s. The auction house will hold its first major sale of 20th century “outsider art” Monday at its Rockefeller Center facility in Manhattan. The auction will feature works by more than 50 artists, primarily from the collection of Robert M. Greenberg, founder and chairman of R/GA Digital Studios.

A chunky limestone carving, which resembles a house or church but is titled “Noah’s Ark,” is expected to bring the biggest price, between $400,000 and $600,000. It’s the work of William Edmondson, an African American stone cutter who died in 1951. He made most of his sculpture in Nashville during the Depression, claiming that God worked through his hands.

Also going on the auction block is a 9-foot-long, double-sided drawing by Henry Darger, valued at $50,000 to $70,000. Darger, a reclusive artist who lived in Chicago, portrayed armies of good and evil little girls in a strange body of work that was discovered after his death in 1973.

-- Suzanne Muchnic