[Substantial Archive of Theistic Visionary and Self-Proclaimed Madman Milton Figen, Containing Hundreds of Pages of Writings and Artwork]

[Various places, including Sri Lanka and Los Angeles, 1990. Overall, good plus.. Approximately [2000]pp., loose and stapled, in various formats, plus album with over 300 art photos, [112]pp. inscribed reproduction art book, four small original art pieces, and several loose photos and negatives. Scattered creasing, chipping, and wear. A few leaves with some water damage. In a suitcase. A very large archive of manuscripts by theistic visionary and artist Milton Figen. Included are about 2000 pages of typescript, manuscript, and photocopied writings about art, his journey becoming an artist, his theistic searching, his experiences living in Sri Lanka, as well as numerous poems, prose, and other stream-of-consciousness pieces inspired by a pantheon of deities manifested by Figen based on his visions. Additionally, there is an album of photographs titled "Basic Conjuries" which includes over 300 photographs of Figen's art, other photos, newspaper articles, programs, and correspondence, as well as four original pieces of art.

Milton Figen (1908-2003) was a native Minnesotan who worked as a journalist from 1932 to 1963. He began painting in 1961, securing his first show at the Cahuenga Gallery in Hollywood in 1963, and by 1966 he was working as an artist full time. He moved nomadically for several years, living in Paris, Tunis, Morocco, and Spain, before returning to Los Angeles in 1968. Figen described his artwork as "evoked under conditions of scotopic luminosity (low illumination, beginning at the point where color values disappear, and black and white values take over)." By 1976, his artwork resided in nearly 200 private and public collections.

In 1978, at the age of seventy, Milton and his wife Dorothy moved to Sri Lanka. Both were ill and ready to move on to "the next life," but staged a dramatic recovery after arriving on the South Asian island. Together they established the first Barefoot Museum, featuring Figen's art as well as the artwork of "Buddhist monks and Nuns, children, schizophrenics, suicides, meditation masters, and foreign artists." Dorothy died in 1981, and Milton relocated to Mexico City for a time before settling in Bloomington, Indiana in 1991. The following year he opened a second Barefoot Museum in his new hometown, featuring an exhibition entitled, "How Words Become Images and Images Become Words & Thoughts: The Theistic Visionary Searches of Milton Figen, the Concrete Satire & Poetry of Gilles Lacombe, Books, Manuscripts, Paintings, & Other Conjures." Figen died in 2003, leaving behind a legacy as an artist and an out-there visionary, having exhibited his work on four continents and having been acquired by numerous prestigious institutions, including the Smithsonian. His writings (beyond his more mundane journalistic endeavors) remain relatively unknown and unpublished, making this a prime archive for further research and exploration.