Jim Dine is a pop artist that seems to get stuck on a certain form and then make iterations of it until he tires of that object and moves on to the next. He was a big part of the pop culture movement and his work was included in a curated to be part of the show New Painting of Common Objects with artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. One of my favorite stories about him is that his work was being shown in London in 1966 - in the Fraser Gallery - and the police raided the place, seized 20 pieces of his work in the name of the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, and then fined Frasers 20 guineas - because the work was just indecent, but not obscene. LOL! I couldn't find much of his work that showed the human form. The closest I saw were his bathrobe series. I guess that's a really interesting way to draw the figure- disembodied.
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...
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