The NIU Art Gallery in Chicago is hosting the “Outsider Art from Europe” collection until April 23, Gallery Director Michael Flanagan said.

The NIU Art Gallery is located at 212 W. Superior St.

The collection is comprised of about 60 art pieces created by 15 artists, Flanagan said. The pieces were selected from seven European countries during a visit last summer by Sal Scalora, curator of the exhibit.

Scalora is a faculty member at the University of Connecticut where the exhibit has been on display at the Atrium Gallery. When the collection leaves the NIU gallery, it will travel to the Massachusetts College of Art, Flanagan said.

The artists in the exhibition have not received any formal art training, Flanagan said.

“The artists are outside of the commercial mainstream. They are not represented by galleries and for the most part do not support themselves on the sale of their art work,” Flanagan said.

“The people that have done the artwork are leading relatively normal lives, having jobs and families,” Flanagan said. Some of the work has been created by individuals who have been or are institutionalized in mental hospitals, he said.

“The art work is very direct, not self-conscious and is not concerned with the views other people may have about it,” Flanagan said.

About 25 percent of the desired artworks are not coming to the gallery because of the fragility and age of the works, he said.

Expenses for the trip to Europe were deferred by a grant Scalora received from the University of Connecticut.

The exhibit is the third in a series presented by the NIU gallery, Flanagan said. The collection fits with this year’s gallery theme of Naive Folk Outsider Art, he said.

The words in the theme are synonymous with each other and reflect the artists’ work and previous exhibitions, Flanagan said.

The first exhibit of the series concentrated on art work from Europe, Asian and American artists, Flanagan said. The second focused on American art and the third on European art, he said.

Scalora lectured on the exhibit in the NIU Visual Arts Building March 24.

The lecture dealt with the artists and illustrated their works with a slide show presentation, Flanagan said.