Henry Darger: A Story of Girls at War—Of Paradises Dreamed
Tokyo
Oddly enough, this exhibition’s title is a fairly accurate description of the paintings of Henry Darger (1892-1973). Many dreary childhoods are described as “Dickensian”, but Darger’s really was: orphaned young, he was raised in a mental institution with no formal schooling. He worked as a janitor in Chicago and lived and painted alone. He became famous for his posthumously discovered works (willed to his landlord), in particular a 15,000-page manuscript called “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”. (more…)
