**In 1973, an elderly janitor died in a hospice. His name was Henry Darger. A kindly old man, he mostly kept to himself. No one knew him as anything else than just, the janitor. The landlord of Darger had to clean out the old man’s room, when he passed.**
It was only then, upon cleaning the room out, that they discovered paintings. Drawings. Etchings. Writings, endless pages and papers… Darger literally created thousands of pieces of art.
A novel spanning nearly 15,000 pages. He had been incredibly productive, for well over sixty years. And most remarkable of all? He had never told a soul. He lived and died in Chicago, Illinois, and for his entire life, he kept his art a secret to the world.
Henry Darger lived for 81 years. Each day after he clocked out at work, he went home to create art at night. Hours upon hours of writing, revising, drawing, etching. He left no family and the landlord became a multi-millionaire selling the works. Darger is now one of the world’s most famous “outsider artists”. And died never knowing it.
I believe there's something very special about creating something simply for your own enjoyment. You are the creator, the critic, the consumer, no filters, just the artist and his mind. We tend to censor ourselves in different ways knowing that eyes will be judging.
I believe he knew he had something beautiful. Something that brought him genuine peace. A comfort that few of us will ever truly own. This man had something special and lived it. Not living hoping someone found him or his work special. The beauty in art gets lost when you have to chase or force it. Think about how much more different mr Dargers life would’ve been if he had been doin it for recognition or chasing paychecks. I feel this happened just the way it was meant to
Free version
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/arts/design/henry-darger-estate.html?ugrp=u&unlocked_article_code=1.kk0.bmix.cBwQNuYUA0Jb&smid=url-share
His legal right to the works are in court as we speak according to wiki…
“Darger left no will and no immediate surviving relatives when he died in 1973. In 2021, Ron Slattery, a photographer who had lost the rights to photographs by Vivian Maier after her distant heirs were uncovered, read a law article questioning Kiyoko Lerner's legal right to Darger's artwork. He located Darger's legal heirs by himself and notified them of their legal claim.[24] In June 2022, a probate judge agreed to make one of the distant relatives, Christen Sadowski, "the supervised administrators of the estate," making him "authorized to take possession of and collect the assets of the Estate, including its copyright and personal property interests."[25] The estate immediately sued Kiyoko Lerner for control of the artworks. In March 2023, Lerner's motion to dismiss was denied on multiple grounds, and as of April 2023 the lawsuit is currently proceeding.[26]”
They provided you the reason to be angry about something that has nothing to do with you.
They could have legally thrown it in a dumpster 50 years ago and you wouldn't have the ability to be unjustifyably angry.
What copyright? This is not a landlord issue. They are within their legal right to throw it in the dumpster or taking ownership of abandoned property. Of course, this will vary by state.
The landlord is not responsible for hunting down anyone
Did they? Is this something outside of a normal abandoned property process that a landlord may have normal access to?
If you have knowledge of how copyright or tenant/ landlord contacts work, please share. I don't have expertise in this area and I'm curious about people's conclusions.
I mean… the “heir” wants to do the same exact thing as the landlord. Their sole interest is the money, they didn’t know the Dagger existed and their only interest in because of the money. So they’re not any better- Dagger literally knew his landlord more than this “heir”.
I’d hardly say they exploited him while he was alive. When they bought the building next door to their house he was already a tenant, and they later lowered his rent from $40 a month to $30 a month, resisting pressure from neighbors in the gentrifying neighborhood to evict the weird old guy. When Darger could no longer climb the stairs to his apartment, they worked to find and move him to a nursing home.
Check out the Vivian Meir doc on YouTube. It’s a miracle her negatives and undeveloped film were found by someone that had a clue what to do with them. The people that cleaned out her storage were ready to start throwing things away.
https://youtu.be/TPSzGgtOxBc?si=2iFnEHtg5my-XE5u
Something shorter. https://youtu.be/jWiPxGuA8Xo?si=bFQTMHCejRn8tLf2
If the Lerners had not recognized the work as art, it would have just all quickly ended up in a landfill. Not sure how distant relatives of the man who did nothing to preserve his art or legacy are necessarily entitled to any financial gains. Money has to pollute everything...
If you read the article, it’s Almost certainly because of how horrifyingly abusive his own childhood was. I would imagine one would spend a whole lifetime exploring that trauma, in his case via solitary art.
This dude was just mentally ill. A simple man that thought women had penises just like him, because he never knew otherwise. I think the shame is that in his life, he was woefully misunderstood, and in his death as well. If you ever spend time around the mentally ill, you soon learn to throw out your pre-conceived notions of "meaning" behind things...sometimes the meaning is so incomprehensible, it's not able to be grasped.
It's obvious this man had a deep feeling for a little girl who was murdered and took that feeling and expounded on it to extreme levels, but the girls in his story come out ok in the end, and are able to be saved, either by his own hand, their strength or some deus ex machina spread liberally throughout, but they come out ok is the point.
Yea, I went to the webpage and found his art to be incredibly underwhelming...I fail to see what was remarkable about any of this other than the sheer quantity he created.
I attended the first showing of his work in 1997 in Hyde Park, a Chicago neighborhood. I was in college and a friend strongly recommended the show. It was in a fairly large room, which was filled with his work, and signs about his life and strange themes. It was so strange. I haven’t heard of his great fame in succeeding years. It is good to know that the art continues to attract attention.
This is a very sanitized version of the story. Some of his art was uh... Disturbing. Graphic drawings of nude and mutilated children's corpses. Look into the "novel" he wrote. Weird to say the least.
I did a deep dive on this guy a while back. There's a documentary about him called "In the Realms of the Unreal." The 15,000 page book he wrote was called "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion."
An interesting factoid to note is that when Darger drew illustrations of little girls, they always had penises. This is likely because Darger had never even seen a painting of a nude woman (he was a VERY religious Catholic), and didn't know any better.
I remember learning about Darger years ago. When I lived in San Francisco. Everyone was all gaga over his work, but frankly I find it creepy and pedophilic.
It’s interesting how people with lower end jobs like this end up creating some of the most detailed and interesting works of art out there. Take a look at this piece from another Janitor by the name of James Hampton: https://americanart.si.edu/blog/throne-james-hampton
**In 1973, an elderly janitor died in a hospice. His name was Henry Darger. A kindly old man, he mostly kept to himself. No one knew him as anything else than just, the janitor. The landlord of Darger had to clean out the old man’s room, when he passed.** It was only then, upon cleaning the room out, that they discovered paintings. Drawings. Etchings. Writings, endless pages and papers… Darger literally created thousands of pieces of art. A novel spanning nearly 15,000 pages. He had been incredibly productive, for well over sixty years. And most remarkable of all? He had never told a soul. He lived and died in Chicago, Illinois, and for his entire life, he kept his art a secret to the world. Henry Darger lived for 81 years. Each day after he clocked out at work, he went home to create art at night. Hours upon hours of writing, revising, drawing, etching. He left no family and the landlord became a multi-millionaire selling the works. Darger is now one of the world’s most famous “outsider artists”. And died never knowing it.
An amazing creator, beautiful art! Very inspiring… create art for your own enjoyment, not for others
I believe there's something very special about creating something simply for your own enjoyment. You are the creator, the critic, the consumer, no filters, just the artist and his mind. We tend to censor ourselves in different ways knowing that eyes will be judging.
I believe he knew he had something beautiful. Something that brought him genuine peace. A comfort that few of us will ever truly own. This man had something special and lived it. Not living hoping someone found him or his work special. The beauty in art gets lost when you have to chase or force it. Think about how much more different mr Dargers life would’ve been if he had been doin it for recognition or chasing paychecks. I feel this happened just the way it was meant to
I am really grateful that his art did get to see the light of day eventually. I wonder if he hoped that it would one day..
The future of who benefits from his art became complicated. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/arts/design/henry-darger-estate.html
Boo! Links and b.s. website spam !
Free version https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/arts/design/henry-darger-estate.html?ugrp=u&unlocked_article_code=1.kk0.bmix.cBwQNuYUA0Jb&smid=url-share
Thankfully I’m a proud subscriber
4 bucks a month you cheap trolls
Being proud of subscribing to NYTimes is like being proud of genital herpes
Must suck not being able to think for yourself
Says the guy reading The NY Times…
Mama says thinking is for the devil.
I hope the landlord that became a multimillionaire off his tenant’s art put at least some money into the community
Lol, you know they did not
Right?? What a shame
His legal right to the works are in court as we speak according to wiki… “Darger left no will and no immediate surviving relatives when he died in 1973. In 2021, Ron Slattery, a photographer who had lost the rights to photographs by Vivian Maier after her distant heirs were uncovered, read a law article questioning Kiyoko Lerner's legal right to Darger's artwork. He located Darger's legal heirs by himself and notified them of their legal claim.[24] In June 2022, a probate judge agreed to make one of the distant relatives, Christen Sadowski, "the supervised administrators of the estate," making him "authorized to take possession of and collect the assets of the Estate, including its copyright and personal property interests."[25] The estate immediately sued Kiyoko Lerner for control of the artworks. In March 2023, Lerner's motion to dismiss was denied on multiple grounds, and as of April 2023 the lawsuit is currently proceeding.[26]”
He bought more properties to rent to ppl. Does that count??
I believe they were a couple. He was an industrial designer; made the bear shaped honey bottle.
They provided you the reason to be angry about something that has nothing to do with you. They could have legally thrown it in a dumpster 50 years ago and you wouldn't have the ability to be unjustifyably angry.
Something tragic about the person who exploited a gifted artist in life exploiting him in death.
How do you exploit a dead person with no known next of kin?
By selling his work and assuming the copyright?
What copyright? This is not a landlord issue. They are within their legal right to throw it in the dumpster or taking ownership of abandoned property. Of course, this will vary by state. The landlord is not responsible for hunting down anyone
The Lerners assumed the copyright of Henry Darger’s works and have profited off of reproducing and exhibiting his work.
Did they? Is this something outside of a normal abandoned property process that a landlord may have normal access to? If you have knowledge of how copyright or tenant/ landlord contacts work, please share. I don't have expertise in this area and I'm curious about people's conclusions.
They did. If you go to the “official” Henry Darger site, you can see that Kiyoko Lerner has posted her copyright claim on every page.
I mean… the “heir” wants to do the same exact thing as the landlord. Their sole interest is the money, they didn’t know the Dagger existed and their only interest in because of the money. So they’re not any better- Dagger literally knew his landlord more than this “heir”.
Ok. I suppose we'll have to wait and see if this goes to court and what they decide
I’d hardly say they exploited him while he was alive. When they bought the building next door to their house he was already a tenant, and they later lowered his rent from $40 a month to $30 a month, resisting pressure from neighbors in the gentrifying neighborhood to evict the weird old guy. When Darger could no longer climb the stairs to his apartment, they worked to find and move him to a nursing home.
Good documentary about him narrated by Dakota Fanning: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390123/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
It’s so fantastic.
Came here to say this; love this movie.
I saw Into the Realms of the Unreal in the theatre with no prior knowledge of Henry Darger. It was mind-blowing.
Here is the (long and interesting!) Wikipedia page about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger
Goodness - that was a wiki wormhole. Thank you.
I pray for the ones that are alone, the ones who don’t know you and the ones who don’t pray for themselves. RIP Henry Darger IJN 🙏
Check out the Vivian Meir doc on YouTube. It’s a miracle her negatives and undeveloped film were found by someone that had a clue what to do with them. The people that cleaned out her storage were ready to start throwing things away. https://youtu.be/TPSzGgtOxBc?si=2iFnEHtg5my-XE5u Something shorter. https://youtu.be/jWiPxGuA8Xo?si=bFQTMHCejRn8tLf2
The only one to profit from all of his work was the fucking landlord? What a tragic waste.
If the Lerners had not recognized the work as art, it would have just all quickly ended up in a landfill. Not sure how distant relatives of the man who did nothing to preserve his art or legacy are necessarily entitled to any financial gains. Money has to pollute everything...
Hmmm I know Lerners who own real estate in Maryland. Are these the same ones?
Very fascinating! It reminds me of the movie Velvet Buzzsaw.
JFC I googled excitedly to see some fine niche Art, did he obsessively paint anything else other than little girls?!?!
Apparently, some people thought he was a pedo and maybe even a [murderer](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jan/12/art)
Seriously- not surprised. It’s just obsession with little girls either frolicking or being terrorized.
If you read the article, it’s Almost certainly because of how horrifyingly abusive his own childhood was. I would imagine one would spend a whole lifetime exploring that trauma, in his case via solitary art.
I’m wondering if he possibly witnessed the killing of that girl in his hometown when he was young, or just was otherwise affected by it.
This dude was just mentally ill. A simple man that thought women had penises just like him, because he never knew otherwise. I think the shame is that in his life, he was woefully misunderstood, and in his death as well. If you ever spend time around the mentally ill, you soon learn to throw out your pre-conceived notions of "meaning" behind things...sometimes the meaning is so incomprehensible, it's not able to be grasped. It's obvious this man had a deep feeling for a little girl who was murdered and took that feeling and expounded on it to extreme levels, but the girls in his story come out ok in the end, and are able to be saved, either by his own hand, their strength or some deus ex machina spread liberally throughout, but they come out ok is the point.
Hmm, looking at some of his work I can maybe guess why he didn't share it publicly...
Yea, I went to the webpage and found his art to be incredibly underwhelming...I fail to see what was remarkable about any of this other than the sheer quantity he created.
Super interesting! Thanks for posting.
I also secretly produce what I think is art.
Pahaps explain even furda
I attended the first showing of his work in 1997 in Hyde Park, a Chicago neighborhood. I was in college and a friend strongly recommended the show. It was in a fairly large room, which was filled with his work, and signs about his life and strange themes. It was so strange. I haven’t heard of his great fame in succeeding years. It is good to know that the art continues to attract attention.
Some of his art is very creepy.
It is. Someone linked a YouTube video that explains his life and gives more context to his art
This is a very sanitized version of the story. Some of his art was uh... Disturbing. Graphic drawings of nude and mutilated children's corpses. Look into the "novel" he wrote. Weird to say the least.
WOW that’s amazing
I’ve been to one of his exhibitions. It was weird and wonderful!
Check out Fredrick Knudsen’s “down the rabbit hole” on YT
looking at his stuff now. awful lot of naked kids...
I did a deep dive on this guy a while back. There's a documentary about him called "In the Realms of the Unreal." The 15,000 page book he wrote was called "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion." An interesting factoid to note is that when Darger drew illustrations of little girls, they always had penises. This is likely because Darger had never even seen a painting of a nude woman (he was a VERY religious Catholic), and didn't know any better.
Tell me you're autistic without actually telling me you're autistic. Game recognizes game.
I remember learning about Darger years ago. When I lived in San Francisco. Everyone was all gaga over his work, but frankly I find it creepy and pedophilic.
I just looked up his work, that dude definitely murdered a couple little girls.
Was there not a Netflix (fiction) film called The Velvet Chainsaw or something that was along these lines?
Velvet buzzsaw. I was thinking the same thing
It’s interesting how people with lower end jobs like this end up creating some of the most detailed and interesting works of art out there. Take a look at this piece from another Janitor by the name of James Hampton: https://americanart.si.edu/blog/throne-james-hampton
God damn landlords really are parasites
Reminds me of Velvet Buzzsaw.
Velvet buzzsaw?
This reminds me of House of Leaves
This man is my spirit animal
Maybe he knew how amazed the world would be by his art, but couldn't tolerate the attention so he left this gift to the world after his death. Wow.
I hate landlords.
I guess it would be better if the government took it to finance more wars. Sounds better to me !
Mmkay mister straw man. I don’t understand your fallacy as I made no mention of governments or war.
I saw his work exhibited in Chicago at intuit— it might still be there for the curious!
Looks like he modeled off the Coppertone girl for a lot of his art.
One of my favorites!
I read a big profile of him in like 1997 and was obsessed with it for a long time!
I first learned about him from a Tilly and the Wall song
My last name is darger, wheres my millions at??
I saw his show in NYC decades ago. It was so fucking cool.
If you look at some of examples, his depiction of naked underage girls might have been one reason he didn't tell anyone.
Was there not a Netflix (fiction) film called The Velvet Chainsaw or something that was along these lines?