Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection Audio Exhibition
Henry Darger (American, 1892–1973), Blengin, circa 1920–30, watercolor, graphite pencil, blue carbon paper transfer on paper, 23 1/2 x 34 15/16 in. (59.7 x 88.7 cm), Collection of Richard Rosenthal, © Estate of Henry Darger, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Verbal Description
Hello, my name is Liz Warren-Novick, and I am the museum’s membership and annual giving manager. I will be reading the verbal description for Blengin by Henry Darger in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Henry Darger was an American artist who lived from 1892 to 1973. He created his painting, Blengin, between 1920 and 1930. It is watercolor, graphite pencil, and blue carbon paper transfer on paper and is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
Blengin is a horizontally oriented watercolor painting measuring 23 and one-half by 34 and fifteen sixteenths, or 59.7 by 88.7 centimeters. Henry Darger has drawn an imaginary creature called a Blengiglomenean, a serpent with human and animal characteristics, in this colorful picture. The creature takes up nearly the entirety of the image. The body is lizard-like, with a long, scaly body that is yellow along the back, and long horizontal stripes of pink and light green along its sides. Vertical stripes of blue, red, and yellow decorate the belly. On its head, it has what appear to be pink moose antlers. The Blengin also has white, jagged upraised scales along his back and a green rattle-snake-like tail. Also protruding from his back are two large, butterfly-like wings divided into three lobes. The most prominent feature of the work, the wings are decorated with graphic elements of dots, circles, sun-shapes, stripes, and curved lines in shades of red, green, pink, turquoise, yellow, black, and blue. Along the back edge of the wings are three curved yellow spikes. The creature stands on a blue-green ground with a beige background.
Label Text
Hello, my name is Liz Warren-Novick, and I am the museum’s membership and annual giving manager. I will be reading the label for Blengin by Henry Darger in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Henry Darger was an American artist who lived from 1892 to 1973. He created his painting, Blengin, between 1920 and 1930. It is watercolor, graphite pencil, and blue carbon paper transfer on paper and is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
In the rich fantasy world of the Chicago artist Henry Darger, Blengin is short for Blengiglomenean, a creature of his invention yet similar to mythological beings across time and cultures. Darger’s Blengins are serpents sharing human and animal charac-teristics. They appear in his watercolors in various forms—sometimes more human, other times more animal—and evolved over the decades.
Unlike the artist’s later watercolors (represented elsewhere in this exhibition), in which he extensively appropriated elements from printed matter, Darger largely drew this fanciful work by hand. He used children’s watercolor sets, but rather than painting with the standard colors as they came, he crushed the dry pigment blocks and mixed them to create his own hues. The decorative patterns and candy-like colors make this a magical beast.