ART BRUT CAN BE REALLY VIOLENT
Anne texted me not so long ago saying that she was a the "Henry Darger exhibition". I couldn’t for the life of me work out why the name rang such a strong bell. I certainly didn’t know the artist - or didn’t think I did. I discovered that he was on my exhibition list which I complete once a month with updates from the many art reviews I receive. I could add here that there is very little I was to see at the moment, which is a bit frustrating. Henry Darger (1892-1973)had what I suppose could be described as a rather sad life. His Mother died when he was a very young boy. Although his father was a kind man, when he died too, Henry was sent to an asylum as he was thought to be a simpleton. Later he escaped and came back to Chicago where he was born and and lived off small incomes which came from odd jobs in hospitals.
As with so many of these artists, his work was discovered after he died. In actual fact it was a photographer who discovered his work. In secret, he had writt...