Artist illustrated disturbing tales

By F.N. D’ALESSIO

CHICAGO — It took death for anyone to notice Henry Darger.

The tiny, unkempt recluse spent 54 years in the most menial of hospital jobs. In his off hours, he attended Catholic Mass — as many as five times some Sundays — and rummaged through garbage cans. But most of his time was spent in a tiny, cluttered apartment, where he could be heard talking to himself in a bewildering array of voices while pecking away at an ancient typewriter.

Just before Darger’s death in 1973 at age 81, volunteers cleaning out piles of newspapers, magazines and comic books from his room made an astounding discovery: three massive manuscripts, including a 10-volume tome estimated at 9 million words — 16 times longer than a standard English translation of “War and Peace” — and a trove of watercolors and collages he’d created to illustrate his stories.

Now, 35 years after his death, the man who lived a life of obscurity is one of the most famous and disturbing figures in the history of outsider art — produced by people who are untrained, visionary and sometimes demonstrably insane. His work fetches upward of $80,000 and his room is recreated at a new permanent exhibit at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, a Chicago gallery.

Part of Darger’s attraction is the mystery surrounding his life and art.

Most of his stories and illustrations, some set on another planet, involve prepubescent girls — particularly the seven Vivian sisters, daughters of a general, who all are blonde and about 10 years old. Darger illustrated his works with hundreds of hand-colored collages, up to 12 feet long and many double-sided, assembled from images he had clipped or traced from magazines and other sources.

The differences in his depictions can be stark and startling. The Vivian girls and their companions sometimes play in fanciful gardens or are shown being aided by monsters called “blengins.” But other pictures show the girls, often naked and with male genitalia, battling oppressor soldiers. Sometimes the soldiers are shown strangling the girls, impaling them with bayonets and disemboweling them. There is no rape, nor any mention of sexual activity.