Richard Dadd Prints, Posters & Canvas Art

Biography

Richard Dadd was born in Chatham, Kent. He was educated at the Royal Academy from 1837, and also exhibited there from this date. He entered upon his career as an artist in the circle of painters known as The Clique. In the years 1842-43, he travelled to the Middle East and a Grand Tour of Europe with his patron, Sir Thomas Philips. Where, he began to experience delusions. On his return from this trip he suffered a bout of insanity in the course of which he murdered his father. For the rest of his life Dadd was confined in the asylums of Bethlem and Broadmoor, where he remained until his death in 1886. Throughout the period in prison, he continued to paint, making hallucinatory works fuelled by his memory and imagination and also using his travel sketchbooks. His works finally came to light, when his most famous painting The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, was presented to the Tate in 1963 by the poet Siegfried Sassoon. During the twentieth century, his works were encouraged by movements such as Surrealism.