Henry Darger

Henry Darger had a very trying childhood, and the difficulties he experienced parallel stories depicted in his work, particularly the plight of orphaned children. When Darger was four years old, his mother died, shortly after giving birth to his sister, who was immediately put up for adoption. A few years later, because of his father’s ailing health, Darger was placed in a Catholic boys’ home and later transferred to the Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children in Lincoln, Illinois. In 1908, he escaped and found menial work in a hospital (he was employed in hospitals for the rest of his working life, as a janitor, dishwasher, and bandage roller). He started writing his most epic work In the Realms of the Unreal two years later.

For 40 years, Darger lived in a one-room apartment on Chicago’s North Side that also functioned as his studio. Teeming with objects—from balls of twine and Pepto Bismol bottles to coloring books and watercolors—Darger gave up his bed for art storage and instead slept in a chair by his desk. Darger cocooned himself within the imagery of his art; his portraits of the Vivian Girls, characters from his 15,000-page novel, flanked his mantel, and his albums of source material and collections of art supplies covered any available surface. His devotion to his artistic practice was matched only by his faith; he sometimes attended Catholic Mass several times a day. Darger did not share his work with anyone; his landlord, the artist Nathan Lerner, discovered it posthumously.