For the Love of Art: The Story of The Secret Painter
36:34 Share

This episode is sponsored by Indeed. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy, just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. Indeed's sponsored jobs helps you stand out and hire fast.

With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs.

When we recently used Indeed for a job vacancy, the response was incredible. With such a high level of potential candidates, it was so much easier to hire fast and hire well. Plus, with Indeed's sponsored jobs, there are no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results. How fast is Indeed? In the minute I've been talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide.

There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash intelligence squared.

Just go to indeed.com slash intelligence squared and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com slash intelligence squared. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring.

Indeed, it's all you need.

Established in 2025. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash promo. All lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash promo to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com slash promo.

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Leila Ismail. Our guest today is television scriptwriter and author Joe Tucker. His new book, The Secret Painter, tells the fascinating story of his uncle Eric, a working class man from Woking who secretly created over 500 paintings that were uncovered after his death.

Joining Joe in conversation is author and critic Catherine Hughes, whose latest book, Catland, explores the life of Victorian cat artist, Lewis Wayne. Let's join Catherine now with more. Welcome to Intelligence Squared. I'm Catherine Hughes, and our guest today is Joe Tucker. Joe Tucker originally trained as an animation director before becoming a television scriptwriter. With his scriptwriting partner, Lloyd Wolfe, he's created and written the BBC shows Witless,

Click and Collect and Black Ops. His new book, which we'll be discussing today, is The Secret Painter. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Joe. Thank you. Thank you for having me. The first thing I have to say is that I spent Christmas, we're recording this in late January, over Christmas I read your book, The Secret Painter, and I was completely transfixed. Honestly, I adored it. And

I'm sure everyone will know it's a story really of discovery about clearing out your uncle's, your elderly uncle's home in Warrington, which is where you come from, and coming across 500 paintings, which he'd evidently done himself, which are sort of stashed around the house.

in the most bizarre places. I mean, is it true you found some in a compost bag? This process began before, in the kind of final year and a bit of my uncle's life. And actually my dad kind of, I think, had uncovered less than half of his work

before he died and then it kind of you know I guess because they were essentially they were clearing his house after he died and they realised you know my parents would ring me up saying we've opened you know we've moved this cupboard and there's another 20 boards behind here but yeah the compost bag was I think they had a this was my grandparents house where my uncle lived and they had a kind of

the remnants of an old air raid shelter in the there was like a little back garden and there were even paintings stuffed in there in in yeah he'd you know old compost bags which he'd kind of cleared out you know they didn't have any compost left in them but um

Yeah, they were filled with paintings and stuff there. So it was kind of every corner of the house seemed to have artwork stashed in it. I mean, can I just say, I know it's called King George's Crescent, but just to paint a picture, it's actually a former council house. We're not talking a mansion here. So everything was pretty cluttered. Yeah, despite the regal sounding name, it's a kind of very modest, very nice, but modest kind of...

crescent in in um not too far from the not in the centre of warrington but not maybe about a mile from the from the town centre not a big house at all just a kind of um three rooms downstairs and i think there were i think there were three three bedrooms upstairs and a little bathroom but yeah just a kind of you know fairly modest council house

And the point is, of course, you knew this house really well because it was where Eric, your uncle, lived with his mother, to whom he was devoted, and for a time his stepfather. You were very used to going round there. I mean, this was part of your childhood. I know he worked as a labourer, but you sort of knew he was a painter, didn't you? I mean, you used to go and play in his painting room and look at all the kind of old comics that he'd collected.

Well, he'd taken over the front. He'd basically taken over the front room of my grandparents' house as his painting room. I suppose, I mean, I don't know. This would be sort of decades before I was born because it kind of looked like

I suppose it was the 50s when he'd kind of taken it over and it was kind of like a time capsule. It was still the same furniture was still in there when he'd sort of moved his stuff in. And I did, as a kid, I would occasionally go in there. You didn't tend to go in there because it was his space. I never saw him working in there.

you couldn't get a sense of how much was going on in there or not you know you kind of thought you know you didn't really know how much he was doing in there because I didn't see him in there and I didn't we would we occasionally went in my dad and I would visit the house I guess when I was I don't know I suppose I was about 10 or 11 and my dad would sometimes make a point of going in to try to get his older brother to you know open up a bit about his work

but Eric wouldn't really say anything, you know, you couldn't, he couldn't really get him to open up about it, you know, he wouldn't stop us going in, but yeah, he didn't really engage, and so we were just, you know, after a few minutes, my dad had to kind of give up, and we would just go into the back room, which was where they actually lived, you know, for a cup of tea and say hello and stuff, you know. But we should probably give a sense of what sort of work it is, I mean, it's,

I'd say, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've spent a lovely long time looking at the paintings. They tend to be figurative, so they tend to be about people. They tend to be very obviously the kind of scenes that you might expect in a slightly old-fashioned, northern, working-class life. So there's men in pubs playing cards, there's men and women flirting with each other down at the kind of Legionnaires' Club,

there's people gathering under a leaden sky to look at a couple of dogs who are squaring off to each other. There's women with prams. I mean, we'll come on to the obvious Lowry comparison because I think you've got some really interesting things to say about that. But it's the people that he moved and lived amongst

They're all scenes of working class life in the North. And in a way, yeah, those kind of typical scenes of the kind of factories and the pubs. But that absolutely, you know, that was his life. That was the world scene.

that he lived in, you know, he was one of those people in his paintings. So yes, he painted, you know, the world around him, I guess, you know, the world as he experienced it and the people he knew, you know, the places he lived. And it's not a sort of photographic realism. We should probably point out, I mean, there's a real art to it. He has a point of view. He has a style.

Completely dissimilar from Lowry, we should probably point out. Close to Lucian Freud. I mean, these are big figures. They're beautifully painted, very kind of fleshy, very carefully arranged, aren't they? I mean, you know, you can see a real composition. People are composed in triangles and squares. You know, there's nothing naive about any of this.

No, I mean, we, you know, I didn't appreciate that until after he died, because I really hadn't seen, you know, more than a handful of his paintings. And we also, you know, the other thing I came to realise after he died, because he left, you know, there were, you know, hundreds and hundreds of drawings there.

So you could kind of see his process and I could see that he'd, you could see the sketches that he'd obviously done in bars and in, you know, or in the street. And then you could sort of, and then you could see the sketches where he'd sort of planned out the paintings. And quite often there were,

you know, there would be one or two or three, you know, where I could see, oh, he'd really, you know, he was, he'd really carefully considered the composition and, you know, he was moving stuff around and he was obviously a real planner. None of which obviously I'd appreciated, you know,

during his life, you know, but yes, he'd, you know, and including in that, you know, that he'd obviously really educated himself in art, I think mainly through visits to galleries. You know, my dad had said, oh yeah, he was, you know, he went very regularly to the galleries in Manchester, most of all. He'd given himself a pretty thorough education in art. But what's so odd, because the paintings are so full of a sort of warm,

tender sensibility towards these people and towards that kind of life. It wouldn't be right to say he was a recluse because clearly he is out in the pub surreptitiously drawing and painting these people. But he did live a very singular kind of life, didn't he? I mean, we should probably make that clear. He wasn't married. There was very little evidence of relationships. There was perhaps one love affair, perhaps.

It was a very kind of solitary life, even though he is clearly a very gregarious man. He was a very solitary character, it's true. And you could kind of miss that because he was so...

You know, to experience him as a person, he was very sociable and he loved company and he loved, you know, he loved people. And I think you can, you know, you can see that in his paintings. But yes, he never, he never married. He never, you know, he never had any children. He never, he never left home. He lived all his life with his family.

with his mother and stepfather. He lived quite a kind of freewheeling life, I guess. You know, he lived a sort of... Yes, he was kind of a solo adventurer, you know. That was something about his nature that he was... It was just the way he was, yeah.

Wow. What's up? I just bought and financed a car through Carvana in minutes. You? The person who agonized four weeks over whether to paint your walls eggshell or off-white bought and financed a car in minutes. They made it easy. Transparent terms, customizable down and monthly. Didn't even have to do any paperwork. Wow. Mm-hmm. Hey, have you checked out that spreadsheet I sent you for our dinner options? Finance your car with Carvana and experience total control. Financing subject to credit approval.

What is... Dax, are you... Tracking all our cars on Carvana Value Tracker? On all our devices? Yes, Kristen, yes I am. Well, I've been looking for my phone for... In Dax's domain, we see all. So we always know what our cars are worth. All of them? All of them. Value surge! Truck's up 3.9%! That's a great offer. I know. Sell? Sell. Track your car's value with Carvana Value Tracker today.

Yeah, sure thing.

Hey, you sold that car yet? Yeah, sold it to Carvana. Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months? Yeah, no. Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up and paid me on the spot. It was so convenient. Just like that? Yeah. No hassle? None. That is super convenient. Sell your car to Carvana and swap hassle for convenience. Pick up fees may apply.

You've got this very lovely scene where he, for a while, because I think both your parents worked, he would pick you up from primary school. Is this right? His jacket was held together with sellotape. It was at one point, yes, he had. Well, at one point, he would turn up and collect me in. He had this very old, I don't know what the car was. It was this kind of rusting brown, kind of 60s or 70s car.

that he would turn up to collect me. And this would be in the kind of late 80s, you know, very early 90s. And at one point, one of the windows on his car was held together with sellotape, which he called the stained glass window. And then also his jacket was, he had this jacket that he wore for years and years until eventually we realised he was patching it up

You know, the scenes were coming apart and he was patching it up with sellotape, which I suppose he would have just seen as well. Why not? You know, it works, you know. So, yeah, he would collect me from school like that. And actually, I just thought, you know, because I was young, I didn't have any. I just thought it was brilliant. You know, I thought. Oh, you did? OK. Yeah, I didn't have any kind of self-consciousness about that. Certainly not at that age. I just thought, you know, I kind of thought he had the right idea about life, really. Yeah.

I just thought it was a good approach.

I mean, I think that affection you have for him really, really shines through. But I think also you do something quite important in this book, which is that it's not just a memoir about an eccentric uncle. You're making some important points. So when I was looking at the sort of various press cuttings, the obvious way people talked about your father when these paintings first came to light and you worked to get publicity, which we can talk about today,

Lowry is the obvious person that people mention. And you make a very good and important point. And I think your dad also in the book makes the point. There are huge differences with style. Lowry is not painting figures close up and personal. He's reduced style.

to little dots and dashes, and he's sort of... He's making them move and so forth. So your uncle is actually very interested in individuals, or nameless individuals. But also, your uncle had lived... When we talk about a working-class life, it really was. I mean, he was clearly a very intelligent man, but he'd always worked as a labourer. That was not Lowry's background. Lowry had been born in a leafy suburb of Manchester. He'd had...

lessons at art school. He always worked in white collar jobs, I mean, albeit as a rent collector. There's no disguising. This is a very particular kind of life, isn't it? I mean, I was very interested that your father, who is Eric's younger brother, I think went to art school. And I think you probably did. You probably did too.

Eric's born in 32, so he just misses that kind of, that moment in the 60s when being working class is really, really cool and the art schools are accepting people. Do you want to say a bit more about that? Because it seems really, really important to make those distinctions. You're right that he did kind of, he was the sort of oldest, you know, within our family, he was kind of the oldest member of that generation.

because he was born in 32. To me, he kind of felt, you know, he felt more like my grandparents' generation almost. You know, he left school at 14. I don't think he really had, I mean, I don't think he excelled at school, but I don't think he really had any choice but to leave at 14. That's what everyone he knew did, you know, and then he went into work.

I'm also aware that sort of, you know, I suppose successful working class people is very often like it's defined as becoming middle class. My feeling about him was that also he just really wasn't interested in that. He, you know, I don't think it was necessarily he felt like someone who was sort of frustrated in himself by like a lack of opportunities. He was very comfortable in the world that he was in. And I think in a way, you know, I sort of think with his painting,

Now I've come to sort of see it all. I can see that that was that was also important to his work, like the work that he was doing, that he was, you know, that he was a part of this world.

And yeah, I think you're right that, you know, the kind of comparisons with Lowry are, you know, are obvious. And, you know, I don't think they're wrong, sort of inescapable, especially the street scenes. And, you know, he was an admirer of Lowry and Lowry probably, for someone like him, I think Lowry's success must have given him a sense of,

the world he lived in was, was, you know, fitting subject matter for art, because he was really coming from a place of, you know, his parents weren't interested in art, he had no education in art, you know, so I think anything like that must have been, must have been really important to him. But yeah, I think it's sort of easy to overstate the

the influence of Lowry on him because actually I thought yeah I mean even looking amongst amongst his books because he did he had a lot of art books although they tended to be kind of of the you know they weren't the kind of expensive glossy art books they were sort of cheaper or second-hand books but he only actually had one on Lowry which I think had been given to him

maybe as a present by a sort of family member. So yeah, I think he was interested in Lowry, but he was coming from a very different place to Lowry. I mean, this is a really interesting conversation. He does occasionally make some kind of gesture or movement towards seeing whether he can sell his work through private galleries or possibly entering a picture at the Royal Academy Summer Show, which

is actually ultimately unsuccessful. So he does make these little excursions, doesn't he? Which probably is something your father probably remembers more. And then something would always...

I mean, he sort of wanted it not to work. That's the only way I can put it. Well, yeah, it does feel a bit like that. I mean, there was only one time in my life that I knew of him kind of taking some steps to promote his own work, and that was when he'd entered this painting into a local kind of open call art exhibition. And even that was, you know, my dad had sort of, you know, persuaded him or, you know...

you know, tried to sort of persuade him to do it. But yeah, I kind of, I discovered in, you know, in writing, I kind of knew there'd been these other occasions, pretty much all of them by, you know, the influence of my dad or his sister, you know, my aunt, you know, they, they tried to kind of bring him out of his shell, usually with, you know, and so he had made a few attempts, you know, over the decades to kind of, um,

get his work out there but yeah usually you know with mixed results and yes you're right sometimes very often yeah he kind of scuppered his own chances sometimes you know

He was his own worst enemy. It was difficult to know, did he want it? You know, you didn't know. In sort of trying to help him, you kind of thought, well, does he want this help? You know, he very often didn't seem like he did. You know, he was very closed off about it. Was that problematic? Because what happens, as we know, is that

After his death, you and your father, his younger brother, have decided to make some attempts, which have become very successful, but not for a long time, at getting his work more widely known. Were you ever worried about whether that's what he would have wanted, whether you were following your own particular...

particular desires, you know, rather than his. That must have been very difficult. And I just wondered whether you talked that through as a family. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, you know, we did. I mean, in terms of the kind of exhibition that we did in his house not long after he died, you know, that had kind of come from he'd...

I mean, this really was how my dad began to realise, you know, how much work he produced, because he'd sort of tentatively said not long before he died, you know, I would have liked to have had an exhibition of my work. He'd said this to my dad, you know, to which I think my dad thought, well, Eric, you could have mentioned this, you know, before you were 85 and, you know...

on your way out kind of thing. So that came about because, you know, my dad had said to him, well, look, you know, there's still time, you know, we need to begin by, I need to start by seeing all your work, you know, I need to see what there is, you know. So I guess with that exhibition, we felt like we'd, we felt like we'd said to him, we'll try and get you this, this exhibition that, you know,

Even doing that, we would sort of say, knowing him, we could sort of so easily imagine him, you know, we were kind of like, well, if he were around, probably at the last minute, he would just say, oh, you know what, actually forget about it, you know, because that's what he was like, you know, and you wouldn't be able to get, you know, it would be maddening and you wouldn't be able to understand, you know, you'd be saying, Eric, we've done it all now, you know, you don't have to do anything. No, no, it doesn't matter. You know, don't worry, I've thought about it. So, yeah, we were having those conversations all the time, really.

I think all of us felt, and I know that I felt, that the work really deserved to be seen. So yeah, in some ways you're

You're doing it with a sense of, I think he wanted this, you know, deep down, but it's hard to know what he wanted because it was something he was so unforthcoming about or, you know, it was something that was such a complex thing that, yeah, you know, all the time we kind of wonder why.

Would he have wanted this? You know, we can't, you know, we can't say, you know, I can certainly say this. He would have had his opinions about how we were doing it, you know, doing it wrong. So, yeah, you're right. That's that's that's an ongoing conversation all the time. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy.

We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com.

You know what's smart? Enjoying a fresh gourmet meal at home that you didn't have to cook. Meet Factor, your loophole in the laws of mealtime. Chef-crafted meals delivered with a tap, ready in just two minutes. You know what's even smarter? Treating yourself without cheating your goals. Factor is dietician-approved, chef-prepared, and you-plated. Pretty smart, huh? Refresh your routine and eat smart with Factor. Learn more at factormeals.com.

Actually, what we should probably explain is that you decide to mount this exhibition in the small house in King George Crescent. You had tried and you got really, really close and then failed at the last hurdle to get anybody interested. And I was very, I thought it was intriguing. At one point, the New York Times said,

looks like it would like to run a piece on this great story of the secret painter and they send somebody out to Warrington and this chap, I can't remember his name now, spends several days and it looks like it's going to be amazing. And then the journalist gets in touch with his desk editor

And the decision comes back from New York that actually, because Eric had tried at one point to put a painting into the Royal Academy exhibition, he wasn't a secret genius. He was just, quote, a guy who failed. In other words, there wasn't a story. He's not enough of, this is a term that often gets used, outsider artist. He wasn't somebody who had literally been discovered by...

painting in his prison cell or in a psychiatric ward or, you know, in a little cottage in Greenland, all of which, that would be thrilling and there would be a story there. He just wasn't quite outsidery enough. And I thought that was so interesting, that sense of which he

You talked about his ambivalence, about he wouldn't reach out and then he'd come back when he tried to get work sold. In a way, oddly, that was slightly his undoing when you had to come and try and market this because people would sceptically go, well, he did try. He did have that painting up in the public library when he was 15, you know.

Presumably the New York Times thing was just agonising. Yeah. In my sort of naive optimism, I mean, obviously, when the New York Times got in touch and said, oh, we might be interested. And this was when the museum in Warrington, so this would be a year after his death, they'd said, oh, we will give him an exhibition, sort of a retrospective, you know, we'll do an exhibition of his work.

And in my kind of naive optimism, I thought because the story by this point had been in, you know, tabloid newspapers mainly. And I thought, OK, the New York Times has come to do the kind of nuanced story, you know, the long read, you know, finally. And actually, yes, the irony was they were more disappointed than anyone to learn that.

It wasn't the most sensational version of the story in the sense that, you know, it wasn't this kind of guy who'd, you know, we'd, you know, we died and we'd broken the door down to his house and discovered, you know, in some ways, actually, it sharpened my curiosity about what was the deal with Eric? Did he want

What did he want? You know, did he want his work to be seen? A lot of the time he seemed like he was indifferent to it or even, you know, outright against it. But then there were these occasions when he had tried to get it out there. To me, that was the intrigue and the kind of, you know, the mystery that I thought, well, yeah, what is the answer there? I don't really know.

So in a way that set me off on writing the book. You know, I felt in a way there was something about saying, well, it's either this or he's just a guy who failed. I thought, no, to me that totally missed my uncle's experience of the world, you know, which is somewhere in, which I think was somewhere in between. And so in a way it was good because it set me off on, you know, it set me off on writing the book.

And yeah, sort of, as I say, kind of sharpened my mind to that, to what is the answer here, you know. I should probably explain, after the exhibition that was held in Eric's house, since however long ago that is, about eight years ago, his work has become really quite, I mean, I was going to say successful and expensive, but that sounded a bit crass, but two London, commercial London galleries,

showed his work didn't they and I was having I was having a quick old look at prices online I mean his work is is reaching figures that I suspect well not in France it's bacon territory it should probably be made that clear but still he's reaching figures that I suspect would just I don't know would it be baffling to him or would he be sitting back or is he up in heaven going I

Yeah, well, I think, you know, I'm speculating, but my guess is all of the above, perhaps. You know, I think in some ways, you know, I mean, what's happened for Eric's work after his death is beyond anything that...

I mean, it's beyond anything we could have imagined. And I'm certain it's beyond anything that he could have, you know, would have imagined possible. I think there probably was a part of him that would think that,

Yes, you know, quite right. You know, if I'm honest, you know, I think there would have been that as well, you know, alongside all the complaints about how, you know, we've done it wrong and we shouldn't have done it like this. And, or, you know, yeah, it's hard to know what he would have thought, but yes, I think it would, he, you know,

He would be baffled and yet also, you know, have a sense of vindication, I'm sure. And then I just think finally to talk about the fact that this, I mean, you're very careful, I think, to not to make this into a sort of fairy story. Although it is, it does have those elements, I have to say, but that you make questions.

a very interesting point about the fact that you live and work in London, you work in the creative industries, and you make this very good point about the fact that actually you seldom meet anybody in the course of your life who might be called working class by origin. And as far as we can tell from the figures, working class access to those kinds of jobs in creative industries

defining them very broadly, seems to be receding. I mean, we hear, we read all stories all the time about the way in which, you know, the taking away of grants and

makes it virtually impossible now, I think, to get that kind of education, to go to art school, to do internships, unless you've got a family who can support you financially while you're doing it. So I think you make quite an interesting point that we tend to think that things are so much better now, but in a way, class is kind of the last, if you want to call it class, financial ability to pay, is sort of the last step

the last kind of taboo and it's not getting any easier. Thinking more about, you know, about my uncle's experience, you know, of course made me think more about that and made, you know, as that was going on, I was looking at, you know, the world that I was in and thinking about,

thinking about that and there are times where it's kind of you know working class voices are more heard and are more present in popular culture in the 60s and maybe in the 90s you know it's cool to be working class this kind of thing and I think there can be a feeling perhaps of sort of like well there we go job done it's solved you know

You have to say, you know, in this country that, you know, the dial always kind of goes back the other way. I think it's something that has to always be always be fought for. You know, people like my uncle, unfortunately, have to fight to be heard. You know, that continues. And yeah, in many ways, I kind of thought that.

Yeah, there's a bit in the book where I'm talking about, you know, I'm looking at a show that we were a TV show we were working on. I'm kind of looking at the crew and thinking, well, you know, in terms of social makeup, this is probably what it would have looked like in the 1930s, you know, when my uncle was born.

So, yeah, it's something that is, you know, far from solved. I think it's an argument that constantly has to be made and it's a fight that constantly goes on. Joe, thank you very much. I've loved talking to you. I can't stress how lovely the book is. So that was Joe Tucker, author of The Secret Painter, which is available to buy now online or at a good bookshop near you. I've been Catherine Hughes.

You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by me, Leila Ismail. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us. Customers are rushing to your store. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust? You need Shopify for retail.

With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place and know exactly what's in stock. Connect with customers inline and online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic with plug-and-play tools built for marketing campaigns from TikTok to Instagram and beyond.

Shopify's sleek, reliable POS hardware takes every major payment method and looks fabulous at the same time. Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash lifestyle, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash lifestyle to take your retail business to the next level today.