WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY JESSICA YU
USA, 2004
81 MINS.
WELLSPRING FILMS

HENRY DARGER, AN ELDERLY RECLUSE, SPENT HIS CHILDHOOD IN ILLINOIS’S ASYLUM FOR FEEBLE-MINDED CHILDREN and his adulthood working as a janitor. Oscar-winner Jessica Yu master fully employs animated sequences to bring to life the enchanted world of a most eccentric artist. When he died in 1973, Darger left “300 paintings and 30,000 pages of writing, including his magnum opus — The Realms of the Unreal, a 15-volume, 15,000-plus-page illustrated novel on which he had apparently been working since 1909... Central to the novel are the Vivian Girls, seven blond Kewpie doll-like heroines who are the sweet-souled, ferocious leaders of the Child Slave Revolt… That his little girls…display male genitalia makes Darger’s vision all the more unnerving” (John Anderson, Newsday).

Links:

• Official website
• St. Etienne Galleries - the gallery that handles all of Henry Darger's work.
• Henry Darger fanpage
• Realm of the Unreal: A page about Henry Darger
• Henry Darger images at the Hammer Gallery
• An essay on Henry Darger's work
• Wellspring Website
• American Folk Art Museum. Home of the Henry Darger Study Center and Darger artwork in permanent collection.