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 outsider art—art by self-taught creators outside the mainstream art community.

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 landlord 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 Abbeiannia, fight on behalf of the Christian nations against the enslaving Glandelinians. Inspired by the American Civil War and martyrdom stories, it features gruesome descriptions of battles, many ending with the mass killing of rebel children. Between 1912 and 1925, Darger began producing accompanying collages, often only loosely correlated to the book. Later he made watercolors with traced or overpainted figures taken from magazines and children's books. These grew more elaborate over time, with some of his largest works approaching 10 feet (3 m) in length. Little girls, often in combat, are a primary focus of his work; 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 4,600 pages detailing a fictional tornado named "Sweetie Pie".

Darger's work was unknown to others until after his death, leading to his association with the outsider art movement. His artwork was popularized by his former landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner, and are now featured in many museums' collections, with the largest at the New York American Folk Art Museum and the Chicago Intuit Art Museum. Darger and his work were subject to extensive critical analysis and psychobiography following his death, often focused on his depictions of nude and brutalized children. Scholars have assigned many different psychological conditions to Darger, although the initially-prevalent view that he was a pedophile or murderer has been discredited.