Henry DargerWar Games
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An exceptional gift from the artist's estate saw 45 works by Henry Darger join the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in 2012 and 2013. Restored to bring out the best in Darger's art, these works were shown for the first time during the Henry Darger exhibition at the museum in 2015., Comprising 22 works, this new presentation will be on show in the permanent collection until 28 November 2021.
In his exiguous Chicago apartment the prolific writer and self-taught artist Henry Darger (1892-1972) created a singular body of work which remained on the fringe of the traditional art circuit until the end of his life. Throughout the 15,000 pages of his epic novel, The Story of the Vivian Girls in the Realms of the Unreal, he describes the struggles of the Vivian Girls of the imaginary kingdom of Abbieannia against the adult slavers of the Glandolinian clan. Dozens of sheets of drawings, worked on both sides, make up friezes illustrating this saga.
Curator: Jacqueline Munck