1. Richard Dadd was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail.
13 Facts About Richard Dadd
1. 2.
Richard Dadd was educated at King's School, Rochester, where his aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age, leading to his admission to the Royal Academy Art Schools at the age of 20.
3.
Richard Dadd was awarded the medal for life drawing in 1840.
4.
Richard Dadd was trained at William Dadson's Academy of Art.
5.
On his return to England in May 1843, Richard Dadd was diagnosed to be of unsound mind and was taken by his family to recuperate in the rural village of Cobham, Kent.
6.
En route to Paris, Richard Dadd attempted to kill a fellow passenger with a razor but was overpowered and arrested by police.
7.
Richard Dadd confessed to killing his father and was returned to England, where he was committed to the criminal department of Bethlem psychiatric hospital.
8.
In hospital, Richard Dadd was encouraged to continue painting, and in 1852 he created a portrait of one of his doctors, Alexander Morison, which now hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
9.
Richard Dadd painted many of his masterpieces in Bethlem and Broadmoor, including The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which he worked on between 1855 and 1864.
10.
Richard Dadd was pictured at work on his Contradiction: Oberon and Titania by the London society photographer Henry Hering.
11.
Richard Dadd produced many shipping scenes and landscapes during his hospitalization, such as the ethereal 1861 watercolour Port Stragglin.
12.
Freddie Mercury was inspired to write the song 'The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke' based on Richard Dadd's painting, which he had seen at the Tate Gallery.
13.
Loreena McKennitt features Richard Dadd's 1862 painting "Bacchanalian Scene" on the cover of her 1987 Christmas CD To Drive the Cold Winter Away.