The Collection of the Moscow Museum of Outsider Art was founded - albeit unwittingly - 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.

   Upon their return to Moscow, the organizers broadened their objectives and started actively collecting Russian works of Outsider Art. Over the past ten years, the collection has been exhibited throughout the former Soviet Union, as well as in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Hungary, Bulgaria, South Africa, Peru and the United States.

   The first ever Russian Museum of Outsider Art opened in 1996. Since then, the collection has grown to several hundred pieces and, in 2000, moved to new permanent premises in the Izmailovsky region of Moscow. Today, the Moscow Museum of Outsider Art remains a museum dedicated exclusively to collecting and exhibiting Outsider Art in Russia.