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About this talk

Discover the extraordinary work of Victorian artist Richard Dadd, whose fairytale worlds weave together myth, memory, and imagination. As a talented young artist, Richard Dadd studied at the Royal Academy and travelled through Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt in search of picturesque subjects. Soon after, he began to experience psychosis before a tragic encounter with his father. He went on to spend 42 years as a patient in Bethlem and later Broadmoor, where, encouraged by hospital staff, he continued to produce extraordinary work. This talk will introduce you to Dadd's unique perspective from within the Victorian asylum, where he drew upon his past work, visual memory, imagination and the landscapes and people he saw from within these institutions. Nicholas Tromans is the curator of Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam. He is an officer in HM Prison and Probation Service, and has also worked in universities, museums and auction houses. As an art historian, he has specialised in nineteenth-century British art and has written or edited books on David Wilkie, G. F. Watts, Orientalist painting and, most recently, the display of art in domestic interiors. His study of Dadd, The Artist and the Asylum, was published in 2011.

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