Background

Dadd was born on August 1, 1817, Chatham, Kent, United Kingdom. He was the son of Robert, a chemist, and and Mary Ann Dadd. Richard Dadd was the fourth of seven children.

Education

Richard Dadd attended the King's School at Rochester, where his aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age. There he also developed a taste for classics and Shakespeare that stayed with him throughout his life. He started to produce sketches at the age of 13.

In 1834 his family moved to Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, in London, and Dadd's father began to work as a carver and bronzeworker in the near-by Haymarket. His father's work put his family in contact with different contemporary artists and art patrons, and Richard may have received informal tutorials from some of his father's associates before he entered the Royal Academy in December of 1837.

At the Academy, Dadd befriended John Phillip, a Scottish painter best known for his portrayals of Spanish life, and William Powell Frith, an English painter specializing in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works. Later, Dadd's circle was expanded to include Alfred Elmore, Harry Nelson O'Neill, Edward Matthew Ward, Augustus Egg, Thomas Joy and William Bell Scott. This group was known as the Clique in contemporary art circles and frequently gathered in Dadd's rooms in Great Queen Street.

Later on, Richard Dadd was also trained at William Dadson's Academy of Art.

Career

Dadd began exhibiting at the British Artists' Association in 1837. During 1840 and 1841, he started to work on Shakespeare illustrations in earnest. In 1841 he also received a commission to provide illustrations for Samuel Carter Hall's "Book of British Ballads", which he executed on woodblocks, he also created an oil painting called Titania Sleeping. At about the same time, he decorated the interior of 26 Grosvenor Square for Lord Foley with scenes from Tasso and Byron.

In 1842 he exhibited a version of one of his greatest early works, Come Unto These Yellow Sands at the Royal Academy Exhibit. In July of the same year, Richard Dadd accompanied his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips, on an extended Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. They crossed from Dover to Ostend on July 16, and within the first month had visited the Bernese Alps, the Rhine Valley, Lake Maggiore, Venice (where Dadd spent time studying Veronese and Tintoretto), Bologna and Alcona. From Alcona, the two sailed to Athens, then to Smyrna and Constantinople, returning to Smyrna in late September of 1842.

Things were going well until Richard Dadd, in Egypt, met a group of old Arab men smoking a "hubbly-bubbly", an Arabic style waterpipe. The artist joined them, and spent five continuous days and nights smoking. Though the men never spoke, he believed that the sound of the bubbling pipe was actually a form of communication. By the fifth day, he had decoded a message, which he claimed was from the Ancient Egyptian god Osiris.

After this experience, Dadd began to suffer from persistent headaches and odd behaviour which his travelling companion explained with "sunstroke." Dadd and Phillips travelled back down the Nile to Alexandria at the end of December. From Alexandria, they sailed to Malta and then on to the west coast of Italy, where Dadd began suffering from various kinds of more or less paranoid delusions of pursuit. He became increasingly violent toward Phillips.

In Rome, Dadd experienced a nearly uncontrollable urge to attack the Pope during one of his public appearances. By the time they had reached Paris in late spring of 1843, Dadd's behaviour could no longer be explained as exhaustion or sunstroke.

Dadd left Phillips in Paris in late May, and moved back to London. His family knew a physician, Alexander Sutherland of St. Luke's Hospital, specializing in mental illness and asked him to examine Richard Dadd. The doctor found him to be "non-compos mentis", legally not of sound mind. Unfortunately, instead of being institutionalized, Richard Dadd convinced his father that all he needed was a rest. Together they travelled to a country village called Cobham, where Dadd attacked his father with a knife and razor and killed him.

Richard left Cobham immediately after killing his father, and fled to France, not even changing his bloodstained clothing until his arrival in Calais. From Calais, he travelled to Paris. During this trip, he attempted to cut the throat of a fellow traveller. He was arrested in Montereau, where he identified himself as Richard Dadd and confessed that he had killed his father.

He was sent to the famous Bethlem Hospital, also known as Bedlam, at age 27. That place was Bethlem Hospital's crimimal lunatic department. Richard Dadd was to stay in Bethlem Hospital until July of 1864. Dadd was diagnosed with what is now known as bipolar manic depression.

While in the mental hospital, the artist was encouraged to continue painting and he produced his most remarkable works there. He painted such artworks as "Fair Feller's Master-Stroke"; "Contradiction: Oberon and Titania"; and "Portrait of a Young Man". In 1852 he created a remarkable portrait of one of his doctors, Alexander Morison. In the 1850s, he started to produce watercolour drawings, among his artworks were "Grief or Sorrow", "Love", and "Jealousy", as well as "Agony-Raving Madness" and "Murder". Richard Dadd also executed many shipping scenes and landscapes during his hospitalization, such as the 1861 watercolour "Port Stragglin".

In July of 1864, perhaps because the Bethlem Hospital was overcrowded, Richard Dadd was transferred to a new asylum at Broadmoor, outside London. Here he remained for the rest of his life, painting constantly and receiving infrequent visitors.

Achievements

• Richard Dadd was one of the most extraordinary and astonishing artists of his time. Among his most remarkable paintings were Portrait of Augustus Leopold Egg, Cupid and Psyche, Sir Alexander Morison, Mercy - David Spareth Saul's Life, Contradiction. Oberon and Titania, Puck, Wandering Musicians, Titania Sleeping.
  
  Dadd's artworks live on. Even during his lifetime, the Victorian public was highly interested in him, and there were several popular exhibitions of his works. In our century, Richard Dadd has come back into the public eye.
  
  The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke inspired a song with the same title by the British rock band, Queen. In addition, the painting is a plot element in The Witches of Chiswick by Robert Rankin. A novel by Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men (2003), was partly inspired by it as well. The artwork and the artist are also mentioned in Elizabeth Hand's novel Mortal Love. There are dozens of other contemporary examples.
  
  In 1987 a long-lost watercolour by Richard Dadd, The Artist's Halt in the Desert, was found by Peter Nahum on the BBC TV programme Antiques Roadshow. It was later sold for £100,000 to the British Museum.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Cupid and Psyche

  • Wandering Musicians

  • Portrait of a Man

  • The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke

  • The Flight Out of Egypt

  • Landscape

  • Contradiction. Oberon and Titania

  • Dr William Orange

  • Portrait of a Young Man

  • Sir Alexander Morison

  • Puck

  • Portrait of Augustus Leopold Egg

  • A Turk

  • Mercy - David Spareth Saul's Life

  • Titania Sleeping

  • Self-portrait

  • The Packet Delayed

  • Sketch for Poverty

  • Portrait of Mr. George Bailey

  • Polyphemus

  • At Bethlehem, near the Greek convent of the nativity of Christ

  • Jerusalem street scene

  • The death of Richard II

  • View of Jerusalem

  • Study of eastern heads and figures

  • The gardener

  • A castle on a cliff overlooking a lake

  • The haunt of the fairies

  • Bangor Cathedral and burial ground

  • Portrait of a young man

  • The Castillian Spring at Delphi, Greece

  • Falstaff

  • The hall built by Tathmosis III in the Great Temple of Amon Karnak, Luxor

Connections

Father:

Robert Dadd

Mother:

Mary Ann Dadd

References

• Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum is the first thorough monograph on this neglected Victorian virtuoso. Alongside its 100 color plates, critical essays overturn several myths about Dadd (revealing, for example, that his jailers were generous and often acted as his patrons rather than as his oppressors) and trace the critical reception of his now widely admired art.
  2011
• Late Richard Dadd, 1817-86: Exhibition Catalogue Exhibition catalogue to Tate Gallery 1974 exhibition.
  1974
• Richard Dadd Biography of 19th century English illustrator, Richard Dadd.
  1974
• Richard Dadd: The Rock and Castle of Seclusion Biographical sketch of this 19th century English illustrator who became insane.
  1973
• The World of Richard Dadd The World of Richard Dadd is an intriguing collection of poetry concerning the remembrances of a dark era, that is playfully autobiographical and hauntingly dreamlike in its vision.
  2005
• Mad Richard Based on Dadd’s tragic true story, Mad Richard follows the young artist as he develops his craft, contemplates the nature of art and fame - as he watches Dickens navigate those tricky waters - and ultimately finds himself imprisoned in Bedlam for murder, committed as criminally insane.
  2017