The Baltimore Museum Where Psychiatric Patients, Troubled Teens, and Prison Inmates Become Celebrated Artists

Baltimore’s American Visionary Art Museum

There’s an art museum in Baltimore that breaks every museum rule.

The American Visionary Art Museum collection comes from people who never went to art school: psychiatric patients, retirees, prison inmates, and anyone else who felt compelled to create.

Here are some of our favorite facts about this Baltimore gem.

Rebecca Hoffberger’s Dream

The American Visionary Art Museum opened in 1995 on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, inside an old copper paint factory and whiskey warehouse.

It was founded by Rebecca Alban Hoffberger who dreamed it up while working at a psychiatric hospital.

Instead of focusing on famous artists, AVAM collected works from self-taught creators – psychiatric patients, farmers, retirees, and anyone else who made art because they couldn’t help themselves.

The building itself became part of the art, covered in mirrors and mosaics.

Congress liked the idea so much they named AVAM the national museum for self-taught art.

Now it holds more than 4,000 pieces, from tiny mechanical sculptures to massive outdoor whirligigs.

It used to be incredibly toxic

Before becoming an art hotspot, this land was seriously contaminated. Baltimore offered AVAM the waterfront property on one condition: clean up the nasty pollution left by the 1913 Baltimore Copper Paint Company and an old whiskey warehouse.

The cleanup cost over $1.1 million and transformed toxic industrial wasteland into the vibrant 1.1-acre cultural gem you can visit today along the Inner Harbor.

Troubled Teens Created That Amazing Sparkly Exterior

That dazzling blue mosaic covering the museum wasn’t made by famous artists but by at-risk youth from Baltimore.

Starting in 2000, the “Shining Walls/Shining Youth” program employed over 120 teenagers, many from juvenile detention centers, who worked alongside professional artists for six months.

Each kid secretly signed their work by adding a planet to the design, creating what the museum calls a “mosaic aurora borealis.”

People Used to Hate that Giant Whirligig

That massive 55-foot spinning sculpture outside? Locals originally wanted it gone. Created by self-taught artist Vollis Simpson, the 3-ton kinetic whirligig (officially called “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”) faced fierce neighborhood opposition.

During heated community meetings in 1995, one angry Federal Hill resident stood up and yelled, “We don’t want your whirlies and your twirlies in our neighborhood!”

Fast forward to 2022, when the city spent $80,000 to restore what’s now considered an iconic Baltimore landmark.

There’s a Fart Button in the Basement

Between the restrooms in the basement, you’ll find the Flatulence Post, an entire exhibit dedicated to farts. Created by an anonymous folk artist in 1993, this weird installation features a red button that plays 67 different recorded fart sounds when pressed.

It even includes newspaper clippings about bizarre flatulence incidents, including one about cows that accidentally set their barn on fire from methane buildup.

The giant mirrored egg has survived attacks

The museum’s 8-foot mirrored Cosmic Galaxy Egg by artist Andrew Logan has had a rough life. In 2019, security cameras caught a guy smashing it with a baseball bat after the bars closed, causing $10,000 in damage.

Despite offering a $1,000 reward, nobody was ever caught. Then in 2020, just months after repairs, someone punched it again, requiring another $3,500 in restoration to replace all those shattered mirror pieces.

The Museum’s First Employees Were Hired From Homeless Shelters

When AVAM opened in 1995, they didn’t post jobs on LinkedIn. Instead, they hired several full-time employees directly from Baltimore homeless shelters.

This unconventional approach was exactly what founder Rebecca Hoffberger believed in – that “creative acts of social justice constitute life’s highest performance art.”

Several of these initial hires stayed with the museum for over a decade.

The Robot Family Was Built From Broken Appliances You’d Throw Away

One of the museum’s coolest exhibits is DeVon Smith’s “World’s First Robot Family,” built between 1965 and 1975 using stuff most people would put on the curb.

Smith had zero formal training but constructed humanoid figures from discarded household junk – hair dryers, TV antennas, oscillating fans, and kitchen gadgets.

The seven-member robot family (including a “father,” “mother,” and “baby”) can move their limbs, light up, and make weird mechanical noises when turned on.

They Sold Fancy Art to Fund a Museum for Outsider Artists

In the ultimate art world irony, AVAM exists because of traditional fine art. LeRoy Hoffberger, Rebecca’s then-husband and co-founder, sold his valuable collection of German Expressionist paintings through Christie’s auction house in 1995 to fund the museum.

His collection included works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde that brought in over $1.3 million – using “insider” art profits to create a home for “outsider” artists.

Visiting AVAM

You’ll find AVAM at 800 Key Highway in Baltimore’s Federal Hill neighborhood, open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• Adults: $15.95
• Kids 7+: $9.95
• Under 6: Free

Easy to reach by car (metered parking available), Baltimore Water Taxi (Landing 4), or a short walk from Inner Harbor.