Artist: Henry Darger

Last week, Tom suggested that I take a look at Henry Darger's work, and I loved it so much I decided to make it my Sunday blog. Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. was a reclusive American writer and artist. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger's work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.
In 1968, Darger became interested in tracing some of his frustrations back to his childhood. It was in this year that he wrote The History of My Life, a book that spends 206 pages detailing his early life before veering off into 4,672 pages of fiction about a huge twister called "Sweetie Pie," probably based on memories of the tornado he had witnessed in 1908. He also kept a diary to chronicle the weather and his daily activities. Darger often concerned himself with the plight of abused and neglected children; the institution where he had lived as a boy was brought under investigation in a huge scandal shortly before he left and he might have seen victims of child abuse in the hospital where he worked. (Read more here.)

In looking at Darger's work, I found that it was somewhat related to mine in terms of content (children), and technique. His paintings and drawings immediately remind me of collage, and they are a good source of inspiration for composition. I have been contemplating drawing on my collages, or allowing Henry to have a hand in them, and Darger's work definitely encourages me to at least try it out. Check out some of Darger's work below: