KH Artist Research Journal

Henry Darger just may be the most interesting and disturbing story about an undiscovered artist. He lived from 1892-1973 mostly in Chicago, IL. His posthumously discovered artwork consisted of painting, drawing, and  collage. I can't imagine what this man had going on in his head, the children in his drawings come from such a sad and lonely place. They make me feel uncomfortable. The images are so alike in many ways, but still they each seem to be a real child. I wonder if he based them on real children that he met in life or if he based them on himself. I guess it could be both. His mom died of a fever when he was only a few years old and them his father died when he was 13. He was put in an institution when he was about 7 years old and he was labeled as a disturbed child  ("his heart isn't in the right place") because he hurt himself. He was punished harshly in the institution and he was bullied by the other students, it was a very sad and cruel place for him. He...

I had a religion professor at BYU whose undergraduate degree was fine arts, his focus was painting. He wanted to do this as his life's work, but he soon found that his life was being directed in a different path and he went back to school to become a seminary teacher and then a professor at BYU. Luckily for us, he didn't stop painting. His art began to focus on church history. One of my favorite pieces that he has done is of the prophet Jospeh Smith and a one of the people who scribed for him in a room doing the translation of the Book of Mormon. This picture is significant because it is really the only historically accurate artistic interpretation of how most of the Book of Mormon was translated. The Gift and Power of God, by Tony Sweat Tony uses models for his painting and I believe he uses them both in live sessions and from photographs he's taken from the live sessions. His work is often narrative and fills an important nitsch in the Mormon art world: As close as p...

When my teacher was introducing some of the artists that we could research, he mentioned Andrew Wyeth. For some reason, that name sounded super familiar and he was listed under the category of NARRATIVE figurative artists. When I looked up his work, I realized his name was familiar because I've seen many of his works. The painting of a dog on a bed, entitled Master Bedroom , is one I've seen many times because a print of it hangs over the headboard in my in-law's bedroom. Master Bedroom (1965) Andrew Wyeth Andrew Wyeth lived in the Northeast, and his family was very wealthy. His granddaughter, Victoria, reminisced in an article in VOGUE about how they would go to their families private island every summer ( article ). His father was a famous artist, N.C. Wyeth, he largely painted illustrations for books and magazines. Because of his father's fame, Andrew was able to come in contact with many famous creatives of the day like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mary Pickford. ...