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exhibitions

Henry Darger: The Certainties of War

Like many people throughout the world, Chicago-based artist Henry Darger (1892–1973) lived a life touched by military conflict. Darger was born on the anniversary of the first battle of the American Civil War, and throughout his life he collected images, articles, and novels pertaining to the subject. In the fall of 1917, he was drafted into the U.S. Army to serve in World War I. Though Darger never saw combat and spent only a few months in training before receiving an honorable discharge due to poor health, his awareness of the realities of war remained undiminished, particularly as they affected the youngest victims: children.

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exhibitions

The Private Collection of Henry Darger

Henry Darger had an art collection. He displayed it in his one-room apartment in Chicago, nearly one hundred artworks hanging from string, tacked into the walls, or pasted with glue directly onto various surfaces. Like many art collectors, Darger had a passion to amass images meant, most likely, to provide him with pleasure and satisfaction, as well as to amuse his curiosity and intellect. And like many practicing artists, he surrounded himself with his own production—paintings, drawings, and collages—made in a modest scale, with simple supplies and readily available material. His densely layered collage technique prioritized images of people from newspaper clippings, magazine illustrations, coloring book pages, and photographic enlargements. Selected from the more than eighty cardboard collages in the museum’s collection and exhibited for the first time,  the works on view illustrate another, previously unexplored aspect of Darger’s creative world. These are the images to which Darger woke up each morning, returned to every evening after church and work, and retired to at night.

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exhibitions

Up Close: Henry Darger and the Coloring Book

Henry Darger (1892–1973) adopted countless images from popular-media sources, such as newspapers, magazines, comics, and cartoons, but no single source influenced him as steadily as the coloring book. This intimate exhibition features nine examples culled from the extensive archives of the museum’s Henry Darger Study Center, illustrating the primary role the coloring book played for this important twentieth-century artist.

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exhibitions

Up Close: Henry Darger

This intimate installation showcases eight of the nearly three hundred watercolors Henry Darger created to illustrate his 15,000-page manuscript 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. Volume 6 of that epic is also on view.

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exhibitions

Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger

Featuring Amy Cutler, Henry Darger, Jefferson Friedman, Anthony Goicolea, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Yun-Fei Ji, Justine Kurland, Justin Lieberman, Robyn O’Neil, Grayson Perry, Paula Rego, and Michael St. John

The American Folk Art Museum is home to the single largest repository of works by one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, Henry Darger (1892–1973), who created nearly three hundred watercolor and collage paintings to illustrate his epic 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, which encompasses more than fifteen thousand pages.

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programs

Darger Day: Celebrating Realms of the Unreal

Join the American Folk Art Museum in celebrating the birthday of self-taught artist Henry Darger.

exhibitions

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

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publications

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

By Brooke Davis Anderson, with Michel Thévoz; foreword by Kiyoko Lerner. New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the American Folk Art Museum, 2001. 128 pages.

news

The American Folk Art Museum Receives a Save America’s Treasures Grant

Grant Kicks-Off Project to Digitize Key Materials in AFAM’s Henry Darger Collection

 

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programs

Families and Folk Art: Happy Birthday, Henry Darger!

Families will discuss the work of iconic Chicago artist Henry Darger, and make their own creations together!