In The Realms Of The Unreal

Little is known about Henry Darger, the reclusive, so-called "outsider artist" who died in an impoverished obscurity unusual even by the standards of artists who achieve posthumous fame. Born in 1892, raised first as a ward of Chicago's Mission of Our Lady of Mercy boys' home, then the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children, Darger, a devout (and possibly mentally ill) Catholic, spent his days attending Mass and working as a hospital janitor. His nights were spent in the dusty isolation of his boardinghouse room, where, without the benefit of formal training, he developed the artistic skill necessary put onto paper the fantastical pictures and epic stories —...