About

The Keen Collection is home to over two hundred works of outsider art including drawings & paintings by James Castle, Sam Doyle, Howard Finster, William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez, Bill Traylor and George Widener, to name a few. Modern renovations to the 1869 Quaker meeting house were completed in February 2012 in order to accommodate and display the extensive private collection of Victor Keen.

In addition to prominently displaying his self-taught artist acquisitions, the gallery also serves as a venue for Keen to exhibit his other art and object collections including folk art, Catalin radios, antique metal toys & banks, milk glass, ceramic pot lids, posters, signage, banners & photographs and antique toasters.

THE COLLECTOR | VICTOR KEEN

Victor Keen is featured in the no. 87 issue of Raw Vision, a quarterly publication dedicated to presenting the phenomena of Outsider Art to a wider audience; click here to read the article and to learn more about Keen’s collecting. His interest in and knowledge of outsider art was initiated and developed through a thirty-five year long friendship with Frank Maresca, co-founder of Ricco Maresca gallery, a prominent art dealer in Manhattan, and although his acquisitions are substantially made up of works created by self-taught artists, his collecting has not been limited to outsider art alone.

An alum of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Keen was recently featured in the university’s Remarkable Stories profile this fall. We invite you to read the article about Victor Keen and learn about his story here.

THE FACILITIES

Located in the Spring Garden neighborhood, just north of Philadelphia’s museum district, the 4,300 square foot Bethany Mission space not only serves as a place for displaying Keen’s collections, its facilities also provide areas for special events and film screenings. See our contact page to join our mailing list and learn more about upcoming events.