Darger: The Henry Darger Collection at the American Folk Art Museum

By John Parnell, Michel Thevoz, Brook Davis Anderson, et al.

Henry Darger, who died in 1973, was a secretive Chicago janitor who has since been recognised as one of the supreme self-taught artists of the 20th century. This volume catalogues the American Folk Art Museum's recent acquisition of 37 Darger paintings.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810913984
• ISBN13: 9780810913981
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.3" x 11.3"
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Q: madness or genius? A: madness

there is no question, henry darger is not a genius. the fascinating visual effect of his pictures is not contrived, it is the real result of an extremely neurotic man. but that's what makes these pictures so hard to forget. to put them in context, almost all of the known works of henry darger are a part of the same epic narrative project. the drawings are accompanied by a 5,000 page plus text, telling the story of the vivian girls. darger was not very good at drawing figures, so he traced photos and cartoons he clipped from magazines and newspapers. supposedly he once lost the newspaper photo of a kidnapped girl that he had been using for one of the main characters, and this forced him to write into the story a search for her. he was so frustrated by this loss that he cursed god and exhibited some sort of religious tantrum. it is very interesting to look at his pictures and speculate on how each one came to be. i saw one in a museum, which had four cowboys on horses, positioned in a diamond formation, each lasoing a little girl. the space created is distorted like an optical illusion, with spots collapsing and overlapping in ways that do not make sense, so that you can see one object appears in front of another in one spot but behind it in another. these pictures might give you nightmares or cause seizures.

Darger: madman or genius

I must admit that before i picked up this volume, i wasnt certain of the answer to the aforementioned question. I knew about him, had read bits and pieces about him, but did not know the full scope of his talent.This book allows the reader to see not just his art, but to catch a glimpse of the sheer magnitude of his madness/genius. The art work is brilliantly reproduced (seeing his stack of journals made the book worthwhile for me).If you are at all interested in seeing the work and a glimpse of the life of one of the outsider art masters, i suggest that you pick up this book at once.

The Definitive Darger Monograph

This book was released in conjunction with the Henry Darger retrospective exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum (which is next door to the MoMA). This is a full color catalog of Darger's work and is essential for anyone interested in his art. If you only own one book on Darger, this is it. Highly recommended.