RICHARD DADD

Richard Dadd (1817–1876) is perhaps best known for two things: his highly detailed fairy paintings and his incarceration for patricide. In 1843, as a young man, having suffered a schizophrenic attack during a tour of the Middle East, he murdered his father and fled to France, where he attacked another traveller before his arrest and confession. He spent the rest of his life in London’s Bethlem Royal Hospital and then Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire. Throughout these 40-plus years in asylums he painted constantly: he made The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (Tate), his most famous work, between 1855 and 1864. This new account of his life and art by the leading authority on the artist examines the legacy of one of the most fascinating figures of the Victorian era.