For a significant period, prejudice against the work of naive painters prevented the uniqueness that characterizes them from being apparent. This uniqueness, irrespective of intelligence, education, and social position, manifests as a personal contribution. Indeed, the art of naive painters is by no means exclusively the art of the simple or the uneducated but also of all those who possess a naive disposition. It is more of an expressive ability, akin to that of a child, which persists even when one ceases to be a child. Those who maintain this disposition continue to shape it, indifferent to their position in society or whether they are educated or uneducated. (from preface)