A former schoolteacher and one of the most venerated dealers in Chicago, Carl Hammer touts his wares as "contemporary art and selected historical masterworks by American and European self-taught artists" -- but it's the "self-taught" part that warrants emphasis. Hammer helped pioneer the field known as "outsider art," which has since become a white-hot commodity in the international art world.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Chicago 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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