UPDATE:
THE
HENRY
DAR GER
STUDY
CENTER
BY BROOKE DAVIS ANDERSON
enry Darger created a rich imaginary world through his writing and painting. His work was discovered in 1972 by his Chicago neighbor and landlord, Nathan Lerner. His masterful texts include the epic 15,000-page The Story ofthe Vivian Girls in WhatIs Known As the Realms ofthe Unreal, ofthe Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm As Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. Darger created an astounding body of artwork to accompany this manuscript: It is these fantastic mural-size watercolors,executed in lyrical hues, for which he is best known. In 2000 the American Folk Art Museum established the Henry Darger Study Center to foster open inquiry and multidisciplinary research into the life and work of the Chicago artist. This effort received substantial encouragement from Nathan Lerner's widow, Kiyoko Lerner. She generously donated to the museum Darger's personal archive— including diaries, correspondence, notebooks, studies, tracings, photographs, books,and paper ephemera—and the manuscripts and typescripts of his vast literary works. Today,the Henry Darger Study Center is one ofthe most active areas in the museum's permanent collection. Since the establishment ofthe center four years ago,the museum staff has been consistently exhibiting, studying, and conserving the Henry Darger Collection.The staff also works regularly with a large audience eager for information on the artist,fielding frequent requests to view the vast archive and to borrow Darger's work for exhibitions around the world.
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80 FALL 2004
FOLK ART
In an ongoing effort to educate visitors about the artist, the museum has created thematic displays of his work—highlighting, for example,the role of war in influencing Darger or his devotion to Catholicism and the church—in an installation currently on view in the fifth floor galleries. Organized by Director Gerard C.Wertkin,this presentation includes several watercolor paintings as well as items from the archive being exhibited for the first time: Darger's personal diaries, correspondence with his priests and nuns,and private journals. Wertkin selected the ephemera because it highlights Darger's conflicts with religion as well as his rich and rewarding relationship with members of his church. Future thematic displays will explore Darger's infatuation with weather and fire and his use ofcoloring books as teaching tools and artmaking instruments. Several sister institutions have recently exhibited or are currently exhibiting works from the museum's holdings. Coloring-book sheets and drawn studies were lent to
"Henry Darger: Art and Myth," at the Galerie St. Etienne in New York for a beautiful, one-person show early in the year. A few of our paintings are included in the popular traveling exhibition "Splat Boom Pow!The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art," organized in 2003 by the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston,and on view at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Hovikodden, Norway,through Sept. 19. One volume from In the Realms of the Unrealis presently on view at the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland, as part of its exhibition exploring text and the written word,"Ecriture en &lire," through Sept.5. Finally, three large-scale watercolors are part of an exciting group show at the Landesmuseen in Linz,Austria, entitled "Andererseits: Die Phantastik," which roughly translates as "Otherwise: Fantastic Art."In this show,Darger's work is highlighted alongside the work of artists Lee Bill, Daniel Lee, and Patricia Piccinini. Lending objects from the American Folk Art Museum's
AT JENNIE RICHIE 57. THEY SEIZE A GLANDELINIAN OFFICER WHO IS IN SWIMMING DURING HEIGHT OF STORM (detail) Henry Darner (1892-1973) Chicago Mid-twentieth century Watercolor, pencil, carbon tracing, and collage on pieced paper 22 - 82" American Folk Art Museum purchase, 2003.10.2b
collection is a key objective ofthe Henry Darger Study Center; so, too,is making the artwork available to students,scholars, and people from the creative community for further research into contemporary self-taught artists and their work.The Henry Darger Collection is proving to be very popular in this regard, with more than a dozen people(from Japan, Europe,and the United States) currently accessing the archives. In the next issue, this column will report on some ofthese creative endeavors.* This artwork is currently on view in the museum's Cullman/Danziger Family Atrium.