The Collection of the Moscow Museum of Outsider Art was founded in 1989. At the time, perestroika had focused public attention on both new ideas in art and on the plight of the handicapped and mentally ill in Soviet Society. In 1990, the first exhibit of art by Russian mental patients opened in Moscow. It was hugely successful and traveled to several European capitals. During these travels, the Russian organizers of this exhibit were fascinated with the Western genre of Art Brut, or Outsider Art. This movement had been developing vigorously in the West, but was entirely unknown in the former Soviet Union.
