Naïve art

Strict naïvety is unlikely to be found in contemporary artists, given the expansion of Autodidactism as a form of education in modern times.

Museums devoted to naïve art now exist in Kecskemét, Hungary; Kovačica, Serbia; Riga, Latvia; Jaén, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Vicq and Paris, France.

Examples of English-speaking living artists who acknowledge their naïve style are: Gary Bunt,[10] Lyle Carbajal,[11] Gabe Langholtz,[12] Gigi Mills,[13] Barbara Olsen,[14] Paine Proffitt,[15] and Alain Thomas.

However, most experts agree that the year that naive art was "discovered" was 1885, when the painter Paul Signac became aware of the talents of Henri Rousseau and set about organizing exhibitions of his work in a number of prestigious galleries.

[19] Hlebine is a small picturesque municipality in the north of Croatia that in 1920s became a setting against which a group of self-taught peasants began to develop a unique and somewhat revolutionary style of painting.

This was instigated by leading intellectuals of the time such as the poet Antun Gustav Matoš and the biggest name in Croatian literature, Miroslav Krleža, who called for an individual national artistic style that would be independent from Western influences.

[20] Ivan Generalić was the first master of the Hlebine School, and the first to develop a distinctive personal style, achieving a high standard in his art.

[21] After the Second World War, the next generation of Hlebine painters tended to focus more on stylized depictions of country life taken from imagination.