COLONEL JACK F EVANS1915–193013 3/4 × 11 1/2"Watercolor, pencil, ink, and collage on boardMuseum purchase
© Kiyoko Lerner2002.22.501543123070Henry DargerDrawingsChicagoChicagoUnited StatesIllinoisWorks on PaperChicagoPAINTING
Henry Darger wrote The Story of the Vivian Girls in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco- Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion sometime between 1910 to 1912 and 1938 to 1939. This saga is embellished by borrowings from historic newspaper accounts of the Civil War and World War I, Catholic liturgy, sacred hymns, and classical and popular literature, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and L. Frank Baum’s series of Oz books. Darger’s art practice is seen as an extension of his writing instead of being an illustration of it. He created a cast of charismatic characters to provide the support structure for his narrative, which is composed of long-winded descriptions of battle scenes and cataclysms brought about by thunderstorms, forest fires, typhoons, and floods. Colonel Jack Francis Evans, surrounded in this work by a capitalized description (typical of the artist), is the guardian of the seven intrepid Vivian sisters: Violet Mary, Jennie Francis, Joice Catherine, Evangeline Celestine, Catherine Cecilia, Hettie Annie, and Daisy Gertrude.
Valérie Rousseau, exhibition label for Six Decades Collecting Self-Taught Art: Revealing a Diverse and Rich Artistic Narrative. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2019.Colonel Jack Francis Evans, according to the surrounding inscriptions, is an Angelinian officer and guardian of the heroic Vivian Girls, the protagonists of Darger’s epic 15,000-page novel, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, as Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. Colonel Evans helped the girls rescue children who were enslaved by the evil adult Glandelineans. In the end, good triumphs over evil, and after much death and destruction, the enslaved children are saved, their captors defeated. When he first aided the Vivian Girls, Evans was a lieutenant. He was promoted in rank to captain, then to colonel, and, following another war, to general. Darger wrote that Evans was older and fiercer than he looked in the picture, and that he was, in addition, a pugilist.
Darger appropriated the printed image of an actual person from a newspaper or magazine to create this portrait. His manipulation of the photograph through overpainting and recontextualizing transformed the unidentified military figure into a new persona. Through this process, Darger actualized Colonel Evans. Despite the elaborate military regalia worn by the figure, he seems androgynous, with the face of a lovely young woman or innocent young man.Plate 22 in bookwatercolor19151930 2002 22 5 PAINTING
Henry Darger wrote The Story of the Vivian Girls in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco- Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion sometime between 1910 to 1912 and 1938 to 1939. This saga is embellished by borrowings from historic newspaper accounts of the Civil War and World War I, Catholic liturgy, sacred hymns, and classical and popular literature, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and L. Frank Baum’s series of Oz books. Darger’s art practice is seen as an extension of his writing instead of being an illustration of it. He created a cast of charismatic characters to provide the support structure for his narrative, which is composed of long-winded descriptions of battle scenes and cataclysms brought about by thunderstorms, forest fires, typhoons, and floods. Colonel Jack Francis Evans, surrounded in this work by a capitalized description (typical of the artist), is the guardian of the seven intrepid Vivian sisters: Violet Mary, Jennie Francis, Joice Catherine, Evangeline Celestine, Catherine Cecilia, Hettie Annie, and Daisy Gertrude.
Valérie Rousseau, exhibition label for Six Decades Collecting Self-Taught Art: Revealing a Diverse and Rich Artistic Narrative. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2019.Colonel Jack Francis Evans, according to the surrounding inscriptions, is an Angelinian officer and guardian of the heroic Vivian Girls, the protagonists of Darger’s epic 15,000-page novel, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, as Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. Colonel Evans helped the girls rescue children who were enslaved by the evil adult Glandelineans. In the end, good triumphs over evil, and after much death and destruction, the enslaved children are saved, their captors defeated. When he first aided the Vivian Girls, Evans was a lieutenant. He was promoted in rank to captain, then to colonel, and, following another war, to general. Darger wrote that Evans was older and fiercer than he looked in the picture, and that he was, in addition, a pugilist.
Darger appropriated the printed image of an actual person from a newspaper or magazine to create this portrait. His manipulation of the photograph through overpainting and recontextualizing transformed the unidentified military figure into a new persona. Through this process, Darger actualized Colonel Evans. Despite the elaborate military regalia worn by the figure, he seems androgynous, with the face of a lovely young woman or innocent young man.Plate 22 in bookwatercolor