The Secret Painter

(Hardback, Main)

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Joe Tucker's Uncle Eric was a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout Joe's life. A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost eighty years, he had an almost compulsive need to charm strangers with working men's club comedy routines, and appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie - and yet had also amassed over five hundred of his own remarkable paintings without anyone ever realising his achievements.Towards the end of his life, Eric requested an exhibition of his work. As Joe and his family sorted through hundreds of paintings of street scenes, circus and theatre performers, and busy pubs, they began to ask more questions about Eric's life: why had this fanatically sociable man never left his mother's home Had Eric ever experienced love when he painted it so beautifully And what had driven him to create so much, yet share it so rarelyIn this touching, funny and thoughtful investigation of the nature of expression, the ownership of art and the secret life of those nearest to us, Joe Tucker brings us into his uncle's extraordinary and compelling world. Perhaps more importantly, he also brings Eric Tucker's life's work into ours.

Reviews

'Tucker's paintings are full of warmth' - The Times

'Tucker's work isn't just romantic in its mystery, but significant to British art as a whole. The man represents a cultural movement, encapsulating a too often ignored group of painters who studied a life hidden from London's social scene' - iNews

'Tucker's subjects ooze character' - NPR

'The collection is a remarkable, important find. Northern artists are so often written out of history' - RUTH MILLINGTON

'An artist virtually unknown until his death in 2018 but since compared to L.S. Lowry' - Guardian

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Author Bio

Joe Tucker originally trained as an animation director before becoming a television scriptwriter. With his scriptwriting partner, Lloyd Woolf, he has created and written the BBC shows Witless, Click & Collect and Black Ops.