henry darger

A very puzzling story. Henry Darger was born in 1892 and died in 1973. He led a reclusive life after having fled institutions for the feeble-minded. After he died his landlord discovered an enormous artistic oeuvre in Henry's raunchy Chicago room. Amid the debris he found hundreds of gigantic watercolour paintings, illustrating a twelve volume fantasy novel Henry had written in his lifetime. Read all (?) about it on this website and don't forget to click on the paintings, to be seen and enjoyed in resolutions of thousands of pixels. And if that's not enough for you, you might want to read this 3 page Salon article: "The late Henry Darger is a darling of the outsider art world, a dishwasher who created a vast epic tale of naked little girls. But was he also something more sinister?" Questions, questions, after reading that one. Whether Darger was a murderer, no one will ever know. But did Nathan Lerner really not know about Darger's art before he died? Living in his house? Or did he just sit it out, waiting for the loot?