HENRY DARGER 1892 – 1973 An orphaned child, the reclusive Henry Darger spent his early years in a Chicago institution, and much of his adult life working as a hospital porter while living alone in...
THORNTON DIAL b. 1928 Thornton Dial was born to a poor family in Emelle, rural Alabama. He was expected to work from an early age to support his unmarried mother, who he had moved...
HOWARD FINSTER 1916 – 2001 The Reverend Howard Finster was an obsessively evangelical preacher who used art as a means to convey messages of spirituality to the public. He claimed that he was instructed by...
ALEX GREY b. 1953 Visionary artist Alex Grey was brought up in a middle-class family in Columbus, Ohio. Fascinated with death from an early age, the young Grey used to collect and dissect dead...
JUDITH SCOTT 1943 – 2005 Judith Scott came from Cincinnati, Ohio. She was deaf, owing to her acute Down’s syndrome, and her use of language was almost non-existent. Until the age of seven, Scott lived...
BILL TRAYLOR 1853 – 1947 Bill Traylor was born into slavery on a plantation in the heart of Alabama. After the American Civil War he gained his freedom but remained a field-hand at the same...
