Henry Darger - Outsider Artist

[.francesca]

henry darger was what some call an outsider artist, meaning that his style was primitive, self-taught, intuitive. no one knew he was so talented and prolific until he died, and his landlady cleaned out his apartment. here are some images and the links where i found them.

http://www.saraayers.com/darger.htm

http://www.rawvision.com/back/darger/darger.html

(these are bigger on the website)

http://www.hammergallery.com/Artists/darger/Darger.htm

i saw an exhibit of his work in paris in the summer of 04, his work is enormous and often he painted on both sides, so they were installed between plates of clear glass so you could walk around and see both sides of the paper. there is also a film out about him and his life called 'in the realm of the unreal' which i haven't seen yet, but i've heard it's amazing.

 

[Estella*]

thanks for the thread, .f

just imagine how much recognition his work would get now!
i saw some of it at la musée de l'art brut in lausanne a few years ago and liked it very much, but i was too overwhelmed by the air of the museum as a whole to really pay attention to details.

 

[fab_fifties_fille]

Sad story isn't it...at least he gets the recognition now, although art can be a very personal thing so maybe he wanted it kept to himself. Beautiful though, I especially love the 2nd, thanks for posting .f

 

[.francesca]

no problem ladies

michael and i bought ourselves the book 'disasters of war' for christmas and looking through it made me almost nostalgic. his work is so...consumed with symbolism and there are so many stories..it's hard to just look at it without feeling like you could be in the pictures yourself.

i believe the show we saw was an art brut show, it wasn't all his work...but the show was concentrated with his stuff, it took up the most room