• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Condition Report: Cara Zimmerman, Head of Outsider Art, Christie’s

Outsider art’s auction insider talks about integrating the category into contemporary sales, the importance of quality over backstory, and elevating self-taught artists.

Inner Circle Exclusive
Cara Zimmerman
"There’s a tripod: You need the market, the museum, and the critic to raise an artist’s role in society—to give them the credence that enables them to achieve higher values and get institutional shows," says Christie's Cara Zimmerman. Photo: Courtesy of Christie's
Marion Maneker
April 22, 2026

Join Puck to listen to this article

Outsider art is at an exciting moment, according to Cara Zimmerman, who runs the category for Christie’s—it’s drawing collectors who are attracted more to the quality of the works than to the stories of poverty, imprisonment, obsession, or mental illness behind them. As Zimmerman describes it, this is “a meaningful shift away from … the connoisseurship of dysfunction, and into the realm of This is freaking awesome.”

Inner Circle Exclusive

Join us in the Inner Circle

Becoming an Inner Circle member now takes you even more inside to exclusive coverage you won't get anywhere else
Join Inner Circle
  • Exclusive bonus days of select newsletters
  • Exclusive access to Puck merch
  • Early bird access to new Editorial and Product features
  • Invitations to private conference calls with Puck authors