About this Event
Learn about how a nearly forgotten craft likely influenced the art of Henry Darger. Inside paper dollhouse scrapbooks, children cut and pasted clippings from magazines, newspapers, and catalogs transformed blank pages into vibrant scenes. In the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century educators taught the craft as an inexpensive method to instill American domestic taste. Similar techniques are evident in how Darger repurposed mass print scraps into imaginative worlds, suggesting that he learned about these scrapbooks in his youth.
However, Darger’s works engage paper dolls towards a wild, messy alternative model for understanding the role of craft in the home. This presentation argues that his domestic scenes celebrate the power of the imagination to create unexpected openings—picture frames, doors, and windows—offering delightfully disobedient escapes from middle-class norms and ideals.
About Mary Trent
Mary Trent is an associate professor of Art and Architectural History at the College of Charleston where she specializes in American art history. She is the author of several articles on Henry Darger, African American photography and the co-editor of Diverse Voices in Photographic Albums: “These Are Our Stories”.
Registration is encouraged.
Playhouse Dolls book cover, n.d. Paper, 13 x 10 in. Collection of Intuit Art Museum, Henry Darger Collection, gift of Kiyoko and Nathan Lerner, 2000.518a
Access Notes
Intuit Art Museum is accessible through the museum's ramp entrance on Milwaukee Ave. Please contact [email protected] with questions related to accessibility.
About Intuit Art Museum
Intuit Art Museum champions the diverse voices of self-taught art, welcoming both new and familiar audiences. Located in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, Intuit is a premier museum of self-taught art—also known as outsider art. The Museum collects and exhibits work by artists who typically work outside the mainstream and have developed a sustained artistic practice. Some artists may have faced societal, economic or geographic barriers to pursuing extensive training in the arts. The museum’s mission is grounded in the ethos that the instinct to create is universal and the arts must embrace, represent and be accessible to all. Learn more at www.art.org.
Your participation in an Intuit Art Museum program constitutes implied consent to be photographed, and for those images to be utilized by Intuit for educational, fundraising and marketing purposes. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let a staff member know and we’ll be happy to respect your wishes.
Event venue & nearby stays
Intuit Art Museum, 756 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, United States
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