Henry Darger

Henry Darger (1892-1973) was an American outsider artist who worked for most of his life as a janitor and hospital worker in Chicago. Living alone and largely unknown, he produced an enormous private body of illustrated fiction centered on a manuscript he called In the Realms of the Unreal, running to more than 15,000 pages and described as among the longest works of fiction ever written. To illustrate the story he created large panoramic works combining collage, tracing and watercolor. His art and writing remained undiscovered until shortly before his death, after which he became one of the best known figures associated with the outsider art movement.