Richard Dadd (1817 - 1886)

Born 1 Aug 1817 in Chatham Town, Kent, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Died 7 Jan 1886 at age 68 in Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Richard Dadd is Notable.

Richard Dadd was born in Kent, England.

Richard Dadd was born 1 August 1817^[1] in Chatham, Kent. He was the son of Robert and Mary Ann Dadd. His father was a chemist in the town^[2].

He attended King's School in Rochester where his skill at drawing was immediately evident. In 1837 he became a Royal Academy Schools student. He was a leader among his class mates and he founded the first artist support group, The Clique, with his friends Augustus Egg, William Powell Frith and Henry Nelson O'Neil.

In the summer of 1842 he joined an expedition across Europe, through Asia Minor and down to Egypt. He was to be the expeditions draftsman and there was no doubting his skill.

Caravanserai at Mylasa in Asia Minor (1845)

The experience brought out drastic changes to Richard's character; while on the ship sailing up the Nile he began to claim he was being controlled by the god Osiris. His delusional and violent behaviour was thought to be sunstroke. By Spring of 1843 he was back in England and his family, thinking he needed rest, took him to Cobham in Kent to recuperate. By now believing his father to be the Devil in disguise, Richard lured him to a park and there murdered him a frenzied knife attack.

His trial was brief as his insanity was manifest. Today it would be diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. He was sentenced to remain incarcerated in a secure mental asylum for the rest of his life^[3].

He was sent to the wing of the Bethlem Hospital in Southwark (now the Imperial War Museum) that housed the criminally insane. He would remain here for the next 20 years.

However, it was not actually certain that Dadd felt he was confined. His doctors noted repeatedly that he did not believe himself to be insane. His artwork is certainly in no way confined to his cell; it is other-worldly. He was encouraged to recommence painting almost immediately and did so. Some of his work was drawn from his travels in the Near East. Others were intense watercolours of individual emotions such as Grief or Sorrow, Love, and Jealousy. But most famously he worked on incredibly intense fairy pictures.

The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke

The single best known of these is The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, now hanging in the Tate. He worked on it for most of a decade and the accompanying poem describes in detail what each character is doing.

Richard Dadd painting Oberon and Titania 1854

He also painted one remarkable portrait, of Dr Alexander Morrison, one of his doctors. It is incredibly intense and it is hard to believe he never saw the Firth of Forth except in pictures.

Dr Alexander Morrison

In 1864 he was moved to the newly opened Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Surrey.

While there he continued to paint obsessively; he even painted the royal arms on the fire buckets. He is recorded there in 1871^[4] and 1881^[5].

He passed away 7 January 1886 "from an extensive disease of the lungs". His body was cremated and the ashes buried in the grounds.

Sources

• Allderidge, Patricia (1974). Richard Dadd. New York and London: St. Martin's Press/Academy Editions.
• Wikipedia Page on Richard Dadd

1. ↑ England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N6KC-Q29
2. ↑ https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/richard-dadd-masterpieces-of-the-asylum-2345818.html
3. ↑ England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892: Kent 1844: p40
4. ↑ England Census 1871 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VFX5-7CB
5. ↑ England Census 1881 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27Z-SBZS