Artist You Should Know: Henry Darger

So apparently I totally missed last week's Artist You Should Know. Bad me! I've got a goody this week to make up for it.

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between: Henry Darger.

(The pictures are scans from a book I highly recommend, Darger: The Henry Darger Collection at the American Folk Art Museum by Brooke Davis Anderson and Michel Thevoz, hence the warping at one side.)

Darger (1892-1973) was a foster care group home-runaway turned hospital janitor and an Outsider Artist* completely unknown in his lifetime. And when I say completely unknown, I mean completely unknown. His work wasn't discovered until his landlord went to clean out his apartment after his death.

His life and work are fascinating. During his lifetime he wrote what is believed to be the longest novel. A 15,000 small type font page epic he called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. In addition to writing this epic, he illustrated it. With 10ft long pieces that were a combination of watercolor, drawing, and collage.

His disturbing portrayal of children is probably what stirs the most debate about him. We know he was an extremely devout Catholic, hence the horns and demonic imagery on the villains. It's the penises on the little girls that give pause. Originally it was thought that he was a pedophile (over the period of time that he lived in his apartment, several little girls went missing, later found raped and murdered), but now experts wonder if it's possible that he just didn't know what female genitalia looks like. There aren't any indications from his journals of any sexual experience, ever. It's entirely possible that he thought since he had a penis, girls and women had small ones too.

His technique was interesting. He overcame his lack of training by tracing images close to what he wanted, then tweaking and redrawing and tweaking and redrawing them until he had the image he wanted. His near endless supply of tracing and collage material came from the hundreds of papers and magazines his collected from the trash regularly.

Darger is a truly intriguing figure, and I find him to be sort of like a onion. As I study and research him, peel away a layer so to speak, there always seems to be a fresh layer waiting for me underneath.

*An Outside or Outsider Artist is an artist with no classical, academic training.