The term outsider artist seems to be applied to those who are self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, they tend to have little or no contact with the mainstream art world and in many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. The term is also applied to artists with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses as well as those on the margins of art and society: the homeless, ethnic minorities, migrants and folk artists.
An article in The Guardian in 2014 described outsider art as “hot”, art fairs are now dedicated to it and they draw big crowds and big money. It’s interesting how the term outsider artist tends to be applied by gallerists, academics, psychologists and art school trained artists – that is, by those on the inside.
But what of the artists themselves? One of the best known outsider artists is Henry Darger (1892-1973) who lived almost his entire life in Chicago. In her book “The Lonely City”, author Olivia Laing describes how easy it is for people to vanish in cities, retreating into their apartments due to illness (mental and/or physical), bereavement or simply being unable to impress themselves into society. Darger was just such a person.
He was born in the slums of Chicago and when he was 4, his mother died of a fever shortly after giving birth to his sister who was immediately adopted. His father became a cripple and when Henry was 8, he was sent initially to a Catholic boys home and then to the Illinois Asylum for the Feeble Minded. He was considered a bright student at school but strange behavioural traits resulted in his incarceration. He was aware of the injustice of all this, “I, a feeble minded kid. I knew more than the whole shebang in that place”, he wrote in his journal.
Whilst there, Darger received the devastating news that his father had died. He was subject to dreadful treatment at the asylum, images of which later appeared in his art. He made several escape attempts, the first resulted in being caught by a cowboy who lassoed him and forced him to run behind a horse back to the asylum. Instances of child abuse at the asylum are well documented.
Eventually, Darger made it back to Chicago for good and found work as a janitor in a Catholic hospital where he would spend the next 54 years, working long and arduous hours. The only break was when he spent a year serving in World War One. He lived alone in a tiny apartment and filled it with illustrations, paintings and writings.
Darger’s apartment
At around 1911, he began work on a novel called “The Realm Of The Unreal”, that would eventually run to over 15,000 pages. After the war Darger began to illustrate the novel with watercolours. No one knew of the existence of this novel until after his death and it is claimed that when he was on his deathbed, he asked his landlord to destroy it. But the landlord, Nathan Lerner, saw the value in Darger’s work and saved it. Some of it is now on permanent display at INTUIT: The Centre for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago.
His novel, which is perhaps in the vein of Tolkien or the Game of Thrones, is about the Vivian girls; that is seven girls who are his heroines who lead an army to free a group of child slaves who are being held captive by an evil army. So it is a classic good versus evil story. It is likely the genesis of this novel was his experiences at the asylum and his war service plus his appalling loneliness. But Darger has left no information about why he produced this vast quantity of work. It is believed he saw no value in it.
Thus it could be argued that it’s the intrigue surrounding Darger’s work that has contributed to the aura around it. If he had been actively pushing these works during his lifetime it is possible they would not have the popularity they enjoy today, where prices in the $100,000s are not uncommon. There is a bitter irony to this story of course, as it would appear he produced this art just for himself, perhaps in order to make his life more bearable.
With so little to go on, Darger’s life and art have been the subject of extensive analysis which have included suggestions of paedophilia. Yet from his journals, we know child protection was a major concern of his. We also know that he was a devout Catholic who regularly attended mass, that he had one good friend called William Schloeder who he possibly met during the war and called on regularly until Schloeder’s mother died in 1956. Schloeder then moved to San Antonio to live with his sister and died 3 years later. This left Darger entirely friendless.
We also know he taught himself to draw by collecting and tracing thousands of images and he also used collage and free hand drawing.
Laing suggests it would be foolish to suggest Darger was not undamaged by his past, not the subject of some kind of breach with the external world. But she quotes a declaration of child independence he made in the “Realms” which include, “the right to play, to be happy and to dream, the right to normal sleep during the night’s season, the right to an education, that we may have an equality of opportunity for developing all that are in us of mind and heart”.
References;
The Guardian
Olivia Laing - The Lonely City
The Good Stuff - The Secret Life & Art of Henry Darger