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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Call to identify scenes captured by Secret Painter
The family of an artist known as The Secret Painter are hoping people will help solve a mystery surrounding two of his artworks. The paintings by Eric Tucker are believed to depict China Clay Country near St Austell in Cornwall but the exact location and the people he painted are unknown. The paintings, one in oil and the other in watercolour, have been part of an exhibition at the Connaught Brown gallery in London. Tucker, who died in 2018, left behind hundreds of his paintings at his former council house in Warrington, Cheshire. Tucker's nephew Joe Tucker said the two artworks were among 550 paintings discovered at his uncle's house but were very different to the others that predominantly featured working class life in the north of England. He said they would love to know more about the location of the paintings and the people portrayed. "These two are a bit of an anomaly in the collection because, as far as we know, they're the only images he produced of Cornwall," said Mr Tucker. "At least, we're pretty sure they're Cornwall – my dad, the artist's younger brother, believes they may depict the China Clay mines near St Austell." He said it seemed likely the paintings were inspired by Edward Burra's famous Cornish watercolours of the area. Mr Tucker said: "We know my uncle was a great admirer of Burra's – but my dad thinks his brother may have also travelled to the area for work. "He worked as a labourer and, in later years, travelled around the country making deliveries to building sites. It's also just possible he was visiting the area on his way to St Ives." More news stories for Cornwall Listen to the latest news for Cornwall Mr Tucker has written a book about his uncle, The Secret Painter, in which he describes how his uncle, who was also a boxer, had a distant and unfulfilled ambition to live in St Ives. About 400 paintings and thousands of sketches came to light after Tucker's death and it was hailed as an important discovery in British art. His scenes depicting the streets and pubs of north-west England attracted comparisons with LS Lowry. Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@ The 'unseen' artist who is getting his final wish Boxer's family 'astounded' by art archive Connaught Brown gallery
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Call to identify scenes captured by Secret Painter
The family of an artist known as The Secret Painter are hoping people will help solve a mystery surrounding two of his artworks. The paintings by Eric Tucker are believed to depict China Clay Country near St Austell in Cornwall but the exact location and the people he painted are unknown. The paintings, one in oil and the other in watercolour, have been part of an exhibition at the Connaught Brown gallery in London. Tucker, who died in 2018, left behind hundreds of his paintings at his former council house in Warrington, Cheshire. Tucker's nephew Joe Tucker said the two artworks were among 550 paintings discovered at his uncle's house but were very different to the others that predominantly featured working class life in the north of England. He said they would love to know more about the location of the paintings and the people portrayed. "These two are a bit of an anomaly in the collection because, as far as we know, they're the only images he produced of Cornwall," said Mr Tucker. "At least, we're pretty sure they're Cornwall – my dad, the artist's younger brother, believes they may depict the China Clay mines near St Austell." He said it seemed likely the paintings were inspired by Edward Burra's famous Cornish watercolours of the area. Mr Tucker said: "We know my uncle was a great admirer of Burra's – but my dad thinks his brother may have also travelled to the area for work. "He worked as a labourer and, in later years, travelled around the country making deliveries to building sites. It's also just possible he was visiting the area on his way to St Ives." More news stories for Cornwall Listen to the latest news for Cornwall Mr Tucker has written a book about his uncle, The Secret Painter, in which he describes how his uncle, who was also a boxer, had a distant and unfulfilled ambition to live in St Ives. About 400 paintings and thousands of sketches came to light after Tucker's death and it was hailed as an important discovery in British art. His scenes depicting the streets and pubs of north-west England attracted comparisons with LS Lowry. Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@ The 'unseen' artist who is getting his final wish Boxer's family 'astounded' by art archive Connaught Brown gallery
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Unseen art of Warrington's ‘secret Lowry' to sell for £1million at last exhibition
ARTWORK by a Warrington man dubbed the 'secret Lowry' is set to sell for £1million in total in his third and final Mayfair exhibition. Eric Tucker, a boxer and building labourer, was a private man who lived in the same house in Padgate for the majority of his life. He hid his life's work depicting northern working-class settings – which has been compared to LS Lowry – in his modest end-terrace home, and even his family had no idea of his talent. While his family knew he enjoyed art, nobody knew the full extent of his extraordinary talent until one day in 2018. It was shortly before his death that Eric confessed to his brother that he would have liked to have an exhibition for his work, leading to his family uncovering hundreds of stunning paintings from throughout his life, depicting working class life in the north west, and particularly in Warrington. His family made a promise to him that they would try and arrange an exhibition of his work, and it was in 2018, shortly after he died aged 86, that the exhibition went ahead and launched Eric into the art world. Nearly 500 exceptional paintings and sketches were uncovered in his house – with some even stored for safekeeping in compostable bags in an old air raid shelter in the garden. 'Its News Time' artwork by Eric Tucker So far, Eric's family have sold some of it for more than £750,000 at two previous Mayfair exhibitions. A third exhibition was due to start on Friday, revealing some of the pieces of art which have never previously been showcased, ending on May 30. It is estimated that sales from the exhibition will take the total amount the paintings have sold for to around the £1million-mark. Eric's nephew, Joe Tucker, 43, has written a book about his uncle, The Secret Painter, in which he dives into the unassuming manner in which the art was revealed by Eric's brother, Joe's father, Tony Tucker, 83. Joe, a scriptwriter from Warrington, said: 'It was very much his style to be almost chronically modest and unforthcoming with his talent. 'We knew that he liked to paint because he lived with my grandparents and never left home, and he liked to use their front room as a sort of painting room. Eric kept his art masterpieces hidden throughout his life 'He made a comment to my dad, when he knew his life was coming to an end, that he would've loved to have had an exhibition in the local museum and gallery. 'My dad kind of thought 'well, Eric, you could have mentioned this in the 84-and-a-half years prior', but then he started to catalogue the paintings. 'He saw it at first as a task that needed to be done, but eventually he saw the astonishing quantity and quality of the work – he was so overwhelmed by it. 'In the end, I think we counted nearly 500 paintings in the house, not including innumerable drawers full of his drawings.' The self-effacing style led to his nickname the secret Lowry and an international art world frenzy, with thousands flocking from across the country to his home on King George Crescent in Warrington to view his artwork over two days in October 2018. An exhibition at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, from November 2019 to February 2020, soon followed. Between July and August 2021, a joint Mayfair exhibition across Alon Zakaim Fine Art Gallery and Connaught Brown Fine Art Gallery took place, and it became the fastest selling exhibition in either gallery's history – completely selling out in the first 48 hours. 'Lady with Pram, Gent with Shoping Trolley' artwork by Eric Tucker An almost equally successful second Mayfair exhibition in these two galleries was held in December 2022. On the nickname, Joe said: 'I don't really know how influenced by Lowry he was really – but the comparison is kind of obvious given what he painted. 'I know that his favourite painter was an artist called Edward Borough, but I think he'd be very, very amused by it really. 'It's hard to imagine him expressing too much about it, but I think he'd certainly feel some pride that his work has been recognised, but maybe also a bit of embarrassment. 'One of the things I was fascinated by writing the book was how he discovered art. 'Eric's parents weren't into art, there weren't any art books in the house, they didn't take him to galleries, and he wasn't part of any local art group. Joe Tucker at an exhibition of Eric Tucker's work in London. Picture: SWNS 'It was absolutely something he found himself and pursued in a very solitary way, and that kind of withdrawn and unforthcoming nature has led to a mystique around it. 'He never even spoke to family about I,t and I look at some of the pieces and I can only speculate about why he decided to paint that or what he was thinking, which lends itself to a bit of mystery. But Joe does recall his uncle providing at least some inspiration for his work. He said: 'I remember him telling me the greatest song ever written was Dirty Old Town by Ewan MacColl, which sums up his life – Eric was absolutely of that world. 'With this third and quite likely final exhibition in Mayfair, we want to sell the work as an act of preservation, as people will look after the paintings, but also to generate money for a trust to establish a legacy for him and his work.' Joe's biography and memoir of Eric and his life, The Secret Painter, was released in January 2025.
The Guardian
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker review – an artist in the family
Joe Tucker's uncle, Eric, left school at 14 and worked as a labourer for several decades before taking early retirement in his 50s due to chronic arthritis. In his spare time he painted Lowry-esque vignettes of working-class life. After his death in 2018 at the age of 84, his family found a stash of more than 500 paintings in his terrace house in Warrington. As Tucker recalls, it felt 'like discovering a vast escape tunnel dug by a prisoner with just a spoon'. In addition to scenes from pubs, theatres and nightclubs, 'there were portraits of pigeon fanciers, surreal montages of clowns and carnival workers, pictures of down-and-outs, cabaret turns, Travellers, broad-shouldered housewives in headscarves, and slightly haunting, hobbling children'. Tucker, a screenwriter and fellow Warrington native, arranged an exhibition of the work in his uncle's home in 2019. It drew thousands of visitors and garnered national media attention; a full retrospective at the Warrington Museum and Art Gallery followed, and the paintings have since been exhibited in two Mayfair galleries. In The Secret Painter, Tucker unpacks the eccentric life behind this remarkable story. Eric, who was single and lived with his mother for most of his life, cultivated a dishevelled look, sporting a faded bomber jacket held together by sticky tape; for a time, he insisted on using a rope as a belt. A former amateur boxer, he was solitary yet sociable, a raconteur who enjoyed carousing in disreputable drinking dens; he loved the comedy of Ken Dodd and had an 'almost crush-like' reverence for radio and TV personalities Allan Beswick and Paul O'Grady. Despite his gregariousness, Eric was reserved about his paintings, and only displayed them publicly on a handful of occasions. That reticence is the book's central mystery, and Tucker investigates it with admirable sensitivity. His uncle, he explains, was held back by low self-esteem and extreme humility; his intense commitment to personal authenticity would have made the business side of the art world, with all its necessary schmoozing and falseness, impossibly intimidating. 'Formality, decorum, status: these were fictions that got in the way of camaraderie, humanity and the real stuff of life.' Tucker believes Eric's lifelong distrust of the middle classes may have originated in his brutal mistreatment at the hands of sadistic army officers during his national service in the early 1950s. Childhood trauma – including his father's death in the second world war, and the tense atmosphere in the family home after his stepfather moved in – must also have been formative. Tucker has considerable sympathy for his uncle, and shares some of his insecurities. Reflecting on his own unease after moving to London, he describes 'a faint feeling of resentment at the theatre, a sense that I'm not quite as pleased to be there as everyone else; a quiet enjoyment of the distress caused by lairy football fans singing on the tube'. In a thoughtful postscript, he laments the chasm between the cosmopolitan art milieu and the wider public: 'Many of those most moved by [Eric's] work were … working-class people – people very much like my uncle's characters, who didn't necessarily look like committed gallery-goers'. This memoir is beautifully written, tenderly affectionate, witty and touching. In one particularly poignant section, Tucker tracks down and interviews a woman with whom Eric had a short-lived romance in the 1960s. She had been married at the time; the affair apparently meant more to him than it had to her, and she ended it. It seems he never quite recovered from the heartbreak. The human connection that was lacking in Eric's domestic life could be found in abundance in his paintings, which evoke a strong sense of community and togetherness. But for Tucker's efforts, they might have languished in obscurity. With its idiosyncratic blend of serious purpose and disarming humour, The Secret Painter is a fitting tribute to its subject. Eric Tucker's posthumous success was a vindication of the life he chose to live: 'To a world that told him in innumerable ways that he couldn't be an artist, he proved that he was and that he couldn't not be. By doing the work, with unwavering commitment.' Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker is published by Canongate (£18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy from Delivery charges may apply.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker review – art for art's sake
'The Secret Painter' here is Joe Tucker's uncle Eric, apparently the most unaesthetic of men, inhabiting the most unaesthetic of places, the industrial town of Warrington, Lancashire. He kept his trousers up with a rope; his habitual bomber jacket was patched with sticky tape, as was the cracked rear window of his car. He worked as a labourer and his regular haunts were Warrington pubs, the rougher the better, and the local Betfred. But when Eric Tucker died, aged 86, in 2018, more than 500 paintings were found in the small council house he had long shared with his mother. The works, of the highest quality, depicted mid-20th-century working-class northern life. Many showed blurry, smoke-filled pub interiors, beautifully composed and full of slightly grotesque figures, typically side-on to show their strange profiles. They often look pale (except for red noses) and pensive, but they all have one another, and here is the first of many paradoxes about Eric Tucker. He did a painting of a horse, which was displayed in the window of a Warrington bookies He depicted scenes of sociability yet he himself was an uncommunicative loner with few close friends. But he had a sociable side. The young Joe was impressed by how he and Eric were once rescued from a rainstorm by a passing lorry driver who obviously knew his uncle. And Eric was warm and attentive toward Joe. 'He'd school me in drawing, how to fill in a football coupon… what I could expect from a Ken Dodd live show. Long sermons on the latter.' Eric, who never married, was devoted to his mother, but he was not like some Alan Bennett character, emasculated by that connection. As a young man he'd had a boxing licence, and he remained a hard man in his attitudes. When, in his youth, Joe reported back on a Sunday school lesson about turning the other cheek, Eric, grasping his shoulders, counselled: 'Joe, if someone hits you, you always hit them back.' With characteristic drollery, Joe Tucker observes, 'In seconds, 45 minutes of gentle instilled Christian doctrine was overturned.' Eric Tucker wasn't totally secretive about his art. He had his painting room in the house, where he worked behind net curtains. Family members were not exactly barred from it, but they were not encouraged to enter, and he seldom went public with his work. He did a painting of a horse, which was displayed in the window of a Warrington bookies, until the council demanded its removal, because passing drivers were slowing to admire it. He had art books mingled in with his boxing magazines. Joe probes the mysteries of his uncle's life, taking on the role of detective. The revelations come as a series of well-spaced detonations, and it would be treacherous to reveal too many, but here is one: Eric's family found his decision, in his 80s, not to have a pacemaker fitted perverse, since it would have eased his heart condition and prolonged his life. But it turns out that Eric, holding up his hands, had explained to a friend: 'These would still be the same' – riddled with the arthritis that was inhibiting his ability to paint. A central mystery is why he never tried harder to profit from his art. There are poignant scenes of Eric, ill at ease in hushed art galleries (in one of which he had a gnomic exchange with LS Lowry), and I don't think I need preface the following broad statement with a spoiler alert: dealing with the middle class 'buggers' of the art world would have taken Eric Tucker out of his working-class comfort zone – the world he depicted in his paintings. 'Making art was necessary for him, though sharing it was not.' The Secret Painter is a bracingly northern corrective (admittedly, I'm a northerner myself) to the metropolitan hype and verbiage that surrounds so much art. It's timely, too, in that the cohort to which Eric Tucker belonged, white working-class male, is often cited as the most left-behind. Joe Tucker writes with a beautiful casualness. The street on which Eric and his mother lived is a 'sleepy loop'; his pockets contained 'a grubby casserole of betting slips, lint and sachets of sugar.' I had never heard of Eric Tucker when I read this book and, to maximise the bittersweet savour of the payoff, I advise readers not to Google his name in advance. The Night in Venice by AJ (Andrew) Martin is published by W&N • The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker is published by Canongate (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy from Delivery charges may apply
