Henry Darger
by Klaus Biesenbach
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Book Summary Information
Author: Klaus BiesenbachEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-10-01
ISBN: 379134210X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Prestel USA
Book Reviews of Henry Darger
Book Review: A game-changing book
Summary: 5 Stars
I believe that the critical apparatus in this book sets the stage for a major re-evaluation of Darger as an artist, placing him in a broader context as a critically important 20th Century painter, and not just an "Outsider Artist" of great impact.
This may be important to art historians, but for potential readers and buyers of this book, the key point is that it provides an extraordinary selection of top-quality work never previously available to even professional scholars. I was absolutely floored by the number of important works featured in this book which had never appeared in print before (and I own everything that has been published on Darger). The quality of reproductions is the best of any existing Darger publication, and the lavish presentation of the work is supplemented by a top-flight discussion of Darger's place on the pantheon and a (still all-too-small) treatment of his writing.
For those potential buyers of Darger books looking for a simple bottom line: buy this if you buy only one Darger book (I bought it today at the bookshop of Musee des Artes Brut in Lausanne.) For Darger fanatics, MacGregor's increasingly-difficult-to-find magnum opus still gets inside of Darger's head like nothing else (credit a decade-long obsession on the author's part),and gives a much fuller view of his writing, but the trove of otherwise-unavailable paintings makes the item under review a must-have for anybody with a serious interest in HD.
A point that will not be relevant to buyers of this book, but which deserves to be made and certainly will not be discussed elsewhere: the fact that this book contains so many previously-unseen paintings in private hands (including the collection of Kiyoko Lerner) must prompt a serious re-assessment of the Lerner stewardship of Darger's ouvre. Famously, they found his vast trove of work in his empty apartment soon before his death. This book, as with everything else in print, fawningly imagines what might have happened if the Lerners had tossed it all into a dumpster. Not especially likely, as Nathan Lerner was himself an artist. As this volume for the first time fully reveals, what the Lerner's did is sold off a third of Darger's greatest work to collectors all over the world (painfully, at least a half dozen works are credited as "private collection, whereabouts un-known") kept a third for themselves and gave another third to galleries, principally NY Folk Art Museum and Musee Des Arts Brut. In all fairness, no-one has ever been in the position of coming into sudden possession of a body of work of this magnitude, but as this first fully definitive visual catalog of Darger's ouvre makes clear, the Lerner's "did well by doing good."
This volume comes very close to being the last word on Darger's visual work, and places it in the context of ephemera and his working method far better than any volume to date. What remains to be done? These pictures were to Darger no more than the illustrations for his 15,000 page magunm opus "The Realms of the Unreal." It is understandable that art historians have not been overly-enthusiastic about coming to grips with such a vast body of writing, but history and those eager for a fuller assessment of Darger's work deserve better. When will we have the equivalent of this book focused on Darger's equally-extraordinary written legacy?
Until then: enjoy. This is the finest, loveliest and most comprehensive tribute to Darger's painting, and a publishing phenomenon in the modern art world.
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