Image Gallery
Henry Darger
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The museum is home to the single largest public repository of works by Henry Darger (1892–1973), one of the most significant self-taught artists of the twentieth century. Darger created nearly 300 watercolor and collage paintings to illustrate his 15,000-page masterpiece, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion (commonly called In the Realms of the Unreal), an epic of war and peace and good versus evil. The story follows the heroic efforts of a band of young sisters, the Vivian Girls, to free enslaved children held captive by an army of adults, the Glandelinians. The children’s nudity reveals their mixed gender, a compelling aspect of Darger’s imagery that is open to many interpretations. Throughout the tale, one confronts much death and destruction, and, as is often the case in the world of fiction, good usually triumphs over evil—but not without challenges along the way. In the Realms of the Unreal, however, has two endings: in one, concluding a series of harrowing trials and complex adventures, the heroic Vivian Girls emerge triumphant, while in the other, they are defeated by the evil Glandelinians. These fantastic watercolors, executed in lyrical seductive hues and measuring up to twelve feet in width, are among the works by Darger that are most celebrated today.
The Henry Darger Study Center, established by the museum in 2000, houses more than two dozen double-sided scroll-length paintings, nearly one hundred early collages, all four of Darger’s manuscripts, comprising more than thirty thousand pages of text—In the Realms of the Unreal; its sequel, Further Adventures in Chicago: Crazy House; a six-volume weather journal kept daily for ten years; several personal diaries; and History of My Life, an autobiography of more than 5,000 pages—and approximately three thousand items from his personal archive of ephemera and source material. This comprehensive collection is one of a kind in the world of the art of the self-taught and is the largest public collection of works by Darger; it is also the largest collection of work by a single artist in the museum’s holdings. As a result, the museum has become the most important institution for scholars interested in the work of Henry Darger.
The museum is home to the single largest public repository of works by Henry Darger (1892–1973), one of the most significant self-taught artists of the twentieth century. Darger created nearly 300 watercolor and collage paintings to illustrate his 15,000-page masterpiece, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion (commonly called In the Realms of the Unreal), an epic of war and peace and good versus evil. The story follows the heroic efforts of a band of young sisters, the Vivian Girls, to free enslaved children held captive by an army of adults, the Glandelinians. The children’s nudity reveals their mixed gender, a compelling aspect of Darger’s imagery that is open to many interpretations. Throughout the tale, one confronts much death and destruction, and, as is often the case in the world of fiction, good usually triumphs over evil—but not without challenges along the way. In the Realms of the Unreal, however, has two endings: in one, concluding a series of harrowing trials and complex adventures, the heroic Vivian Girls emerge triumphant, while in the other, they are defeated by the evil Glandelinians. These fantastic watercolors, executed in lyrical seductive hues and measuring up to twelve feet in width, are among the works by Darger that are most celebrated today.
The Henry Darger Study Center, established by the museum in 2000, houses more than two dozen double-sided scroll-length paintings, nearly one hundred early collages, all four of Darger’s manuscripts, comprising more than thirty thousand pages of text—In the Realms of the Unreal; its sequel, Further Adventures in Chicago: Crazy House; a six-volume weather journal kept daily for ten years; several personal diaries; and History of My Life, an autobiography of more than 5,000 pages—and approximately three thousand items from his personal archive of ephemera and source material. This comprehensive collection is one of a kind in the world of the art of the self-taught and is the largest public collection of works by Darger; it is also the largest collection of work by a single artist in the museum’s holdings. As a result, the museum has become the most important institution for scholars interested in the work of Henry Darger.