John Maizels

John Maizels was born in London in 1945 and attended Chelsea Art School in the 1960s. He worked originally as an artist and later as an art teacher. He was always very interested in the art on the margins of mainstream culture and founded Raw Vision magazine in 1989 as a platform for showing outsider art to a wide international public. Before that time outsider art was little known and the works of self-taught visionaries from around the world were often shown in the pages of Raw Vision for the first time.

John Maizels is also author of 'Raw Creation', a historical account of the development of outsider art, from its early beginnings in small psychiatric collections to its later development and international acclaim. 'Fantasy Worlds' presented another side to outsider art: self-built fantasy architecture and sculpture gardens by creators around the world.

As the editor of Raw Vision he has been awarded the UNESCO prize for the world's best art magazine, the Utne Reader prize for best art magazine, the American Folk Art Museum's Visionary Award and the Medal of the City of Paris for contributions to world culture.