Henry Darger

Henry Joseph Darger Jr. ( DAR-ghər; April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American janitor and hospital worker who became known after his death for his immense body of art and literature. Darger was raised by his disabled father in Chicago. Frequently in fights, he was put into a charity home as his father's health declined, and in 1904 was sent to a children's asylum in Lincoln, Illinois, officially due to his masturbation. He began making escape attempts after his father's death in 1908, and in 1910 was able to escape, walking much of the way to Chicago. As an adult he did menial jobs for several hospitals, interrupted by a brief stint in the U.S. Army during World War I. He spent much of his life in poverty and in later life was a recluse in his apartment. A devout Catholic, Darger attended Mass multiple times per day and collected religious memorabilia. Retiring in 1963 due to chronic pain, he was moved into a charity nursing home in late 1972, shortly before his death. During this move, his landlords Kiyoko and Nathan Lerner discovered his artwork and writings, which he had kept secret over decades of work.

From around 1910 to 1930, Darger wrote the 15,145-page novel In The Realms of the Unreal, centered on a rebellion of child slaves on a fantastical planet. The Vivian Sisters, the seven princesses of Abbieannia, fight on behalf of the Christian nations against the enslaving Glandelinians. Inspired by the American Civil War and martyrdom stories, it features lengthy, gruesome descriptions of battles, many ending with the mass killing of rebel children. Between 1912 and 1925, Darger produced collages, often only loosely correlated to the book. Later he made these with watercolors and traced figures taken from popular sources such as magazines and children's books. These paintings grew more elaborate over time, with some of his largest works exceeding 10 feet (3 m) in length. Little girls, often in combat, are a primary focus; for unknown reasons, they are frequently depicted naked and exclusively with male genitalia. Other writings by Darger include a roughly 8,000-page unfinished sequel to In The Realms of the Unreal entitled Further Adventures of the Vivian Girls in Chicago, a decade-long daily weather journal, and The History of My Life—consisting of a 206-page autobiography followed by several thousand pages about the destruction caused by a fictional Illinois tornado.

Darger made no efforts to publish his work, and it was unknown to others until shortly before his death. He is frequently associated with the outsider art movement, which focuses on self-taught creators outside the mainstream art community. His art was discovered and popularized by his former landlords and is now featured in many museum collections, with the largest at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City and the Intuit Art Museum in Chicago. Initial critical analysis of him and his work incorporated psychobiography, often focused on his many depictions of nude and brutalized children. Scholars have hypothesized several different psychological conditions Darger may have suffered from. Theories from earlier scholars that he was a pedophile or murderer have been discredited.