The American Folk Art Museum in New York has received a new gift of works made by self-taught artists from the legendary collection of Audrey B. Heckler. The works will be exhibited at some point in Spring 2026.
Heckler, a longtime trustee, died last year but her impact on the museum and outsider art continues with this donation of dozens of masterpieces by the likes of Aloïse Corbaz, William Edmondson, Madge Gill, Morris Hirshfield, Martín Ramírez, and Adolf Wölfli.
The collector previously promised nearly all of her holdings, some 500 artworks, to the museum in September 2020. The AFAM, in a statement, called the new donation just “the first announced since her passing.” With this donation, Heckler and her estate have handed over a total of some 150 artworks to date.
Adolf Wölfli. Untitled (1918). Photo courtesy of Visko Hatfield
“The creators in this collection were not in the art mainstream. Somewhere, someone discovered their work; they were found by chance,” Heckler said before her death in a statement provided by the museum. “The artists in my collection did it for themselves, for their own self-expression.”
Heckler, in discussion with curator Valérie Rousseau, chose the works in this batch that best represent her collection as a whole and enhance specific areas of the AFAM’s collection. Rousseau said her collection will increase the museum’s “scholarship opportunities and educational possibilities in promoting self-taught art.”
“Audrey B. Heckler meticulously built one of the most revered collections of self-taught art ever assembled, whose quality and breadth provides foundational understanding of the impact and dialogues these works engage within an expanded art-historical narrative,” Rousseau said.
William Edmondson. Angel (1937). Photo courtesy of Visko Hatfield
Among the works gifted in this group is a monumental landscape collage by Martín Ramírez. It was made around 1950 while he was interned at the DeWitt State Hospital in California, where he lived from 1948 until his death, and contains subjects including train tracks, cars and parking lots, churches, farmland, and imaginary creatures.
The museum has previously staged popular exhibitions from Heckler’s collection, including “Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler,” which ran from September 2019 to January 2020 and featured artworks by more than 80 artists. Overall, her collection championed artists from Sister Gertrude Morgan to Henry Darger to Guo Fengyi.
“We are forever indebted to Audrey for her conviction in the museum and shared belief in our mission… to critically give voice to and reclaim the stories of so many artists under-recognized in their lifetime because of the color of their skin, their education, or history of mental illness,” museum director and chief executive Jason T. Busch said.
Andrew and Jim Heckler, her sons, issued a joint statement that said their mother’s “greatest passion” began when she discovered Outsider Art in 1993.
“We are so proud to work side-by-side with the American Folk Art Museum to further honor her legacy with this gift,” they said, adding that they hope it will “only deepen the public’s appreciation for self-taught art.”
