Henry Darger / Jessica Yu — In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger, 2004

Original promotional film / exhibition poster. Wellspring Media / Diorama Films, 2004. 43 × 61 cm. Offset-printed on paper. Folded as issued.

Condition: good vintage condition; folded as issued, with visible fold lines, light handling wear, minor surface marks and soft creasing. Presents well.

Original promotional poster for Jessica Yu’s 2004 documentary In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger, issued for the theatrical release. Recto with full-bleed reproduction of Darger imagery — a young girl standing before large winged creatures in watercolour — and theatrical release dates across US cities. Verso printed as a fold-out press sheet with film text, production credits, Darger images, stills of the room, theatre listings, and American Folk Art Museum reference.

Darger’s work entered public view only after his death in 1973, when his Chicago room revealed an enormous private archive: the 15,000-page Realms of the Unreal manuscript and hundreds of drawings and watercolours. Yu’s film moved that material into another system — animation, narration, cinema, theatrical release — with Dakota Fanning narrating and Darger’s images partially brought into motion.

This poster sits at the point where the room becomes public image. A private manuscript becomes archive; the archive becomes documentary; the documentary becomes cinema; cinema returns to paper as publicity. The verso is especially strong: not just a poster back, but a distribution surface carrying press language, schedule, institutional framing and image fragments.

A film poster, but also a document of Darger’s transfer into wider visual culture.