The Temple of Silence: Forgotten Works & Worlds of Herbert Crowley - by Justin Duerr (Hardcover)

About the Book

A monograph on the forgotten visionary artist Herbert Crowley, who exibited in the Armory Show alongside Picasso, was published in the New York Herald alongside Winsor McCay, and then mysteriously vanished.

Book Synopsis

Prior to his disappearance, Herbert Crowley was an innovator at the dawn of comics, and a defining figure of the early 20th century avant-garde.

His illustrations were featured alongside work by Picasso, Matisse and Van Gogh in the 1913 Armory Show that gave birth to modern art in America. His newspaper strip THE WIGGLEMUCH was printed next to Winsor McCay's LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND in the New York Herald. He had a close relationship with Carl Jung, and was a noted mainstay of the burgeoning NYC experimental art scene.

And yet he's been completely erased from history. Aside from a very small selection of his comics, none of his artwork has been published or collected in any form.

Until now. Over the course of six years of deep research, we have unearthed a huge number of Crowley paintings, sculptures, illustrations, comics, prints, engravings and ephemera.

Contained in this tome you'll find hundreds of jaw-dropping images of otherworldly shrines, whimsical cartoons, grotesque creatures, nightmares and dreamscapes. You will encounter impossible symbolism, encrypted glyphs, and the yearning visual poetry of a brilliant, tormented spirit.

Enter THE TEMPLE OF SILENCE, and behold the strange, astonishing visions of a lost legend of modern art. Prior to his disappearance, Herbert Crowley was an innovator at the dawn of comics, and a defining figure of the early 20th century avant-garde.

Review Quotes

For those with a niche interest in strange and surreal newspaper funnies, encountering the work of Herbert Crowley is a revelation. His life and work has seen the light of day after many decades in obscurity, thanks to a generously-sized monograph that compiles much of his extant drawings, comics, and sculptures, as well as a detailed personal history -- all researched by Philadelphia artist, musician, and scholar Justin Duerr. There is something deeply moody, bitterly romantic, and ultimately poignant about Crowley's circuitous path through life, seeming always to snatch obscurity from the jaws of recognition. Ultimately he is most appealing to those with a love of the absolute purity and fanaticism of an artist so true to his vision, he was nearly eclipsed from history.--Sarah Rose Sharp "Hyperallergic"

"A surrealistic, sometimes unsettling pleasure for fans of the avant-garde and an obvious labor of love for all concerned."

"As someone interested in the weirdnesses and roads not taken in the history of comix, Crowley is one of the most idiosyncratic and quirky artists in the cohort. I salute him, and you for doing the heavy-lifting archaeological dig of bringing him back to the surface again." - Art Spiegelman
"It's totally unique. There's nothing else like it. I think that THE WIGGLEMUCH is the greatest newspaper strip ever drawn. It's just this weird, infantile crazy coming with these heavy, heavy themes in it. It's just amazing." -Jim Woodring
"Herbert Crowley's drawings are quite interesting in as much as they contain curious symbols referring to the sympathicus as well as to the multiple luminosities of the collective unconscious. He has been driven in to astounding depths -- quite dangerous when consciousness is not up to it. Such things usually leave a peculiar void in the conscious world after they have passed." -Carl Jung
"[Herbert Crowley's] life and work is now the subject of a large and generously illustrated book, Herbert Crowley: The Temple of Silence by Justin Duerr. It is the kind of scholarly and research-driven deep dive that I wish for about... well, most everything. Duerr gathers every conceivable strand of Crowley's unusual and extremely complicated life and work and weaves them together into a coherent and quite moving whole." -Dan Nadel

About the Author

Philadelphia artist, musician, and scholar Justin Duerr is best known for his research documented in the 2011 Sundance award-winning documentary Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. The term obsessive is very often employed in describing both his artwork and his unflagging commitment to research. His devotion to this project has been characteristically all-consuming. By following every possible lead and dissecting every available trace of Herbert Crowley around the world, he has managed to uncover a remarkable story, resurrect a lost piece of art history, and unearth the heart-stopping artworks of a true forgotten visionary. The rediscovery of Herbert E. Crowley is the second major research undertaking of Duerr's life.

Josh O'Neill is the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning co-founder of the small presses Locust Moon and Beehive Books. An editor, author, educator, curator, journalist and publisher, O'Neill has created books and articles for clients including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Atlantic, Dark Horse Comics, Toon Books, IDW and Amazon. He is also a former retailer who ran a comic shop and annual comics festival in West Philadelphia. The City Paper wrote that "you can't talk about Philadelphia comics without talking about Josh O'Neill."