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Joe Tucker's Uncle Eric was a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout Joe's life. A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost eighty years, he had an almost compulsive need to charm strangers with working men's club comedy routines, and appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie - and yet had also amassed over five hundred of his own remarkable paintings without anyone ever realising his achievements.
Towards the end of his life, Eric requested an exhibition of his work. As Joe and his family sorted through hundreds of paintings of street scenes, circus and theatre performers, and busy pubs, they began to ask more questions about Eric's life: why had this fanatically sociable man never left his mother's home? Had Eric ever experienced love when he painted it so beautifully? And what had driven him to create so much, yet share it so rarely?
In this touching, funny and thoughtful investigation of the nature of expression, the ownership of art and the secret life of those nearest to us, Joe Tucker brings us into his uncle's extraordinary and compelling world. Perhaps more importantly, he also brings Eric Tucker's life's work into ours.
"A timely reminder that art did not originate as an investment opportunity or a get-rich-quick scheme but as a way for human beings to make sense of their lives (plus make them bearable into the bargain). Miracles happen in the most unlikely places"
— JARVIS COCKER
"The Secret Painter is a bracingly northern corrective to the metropolitan hype and verbiage that surrounds so much art. [ . . . ] Joe Tucker writes with beautiful casualness"
"This memoir is beautifully written, affectionate, witty and touching . . . With its idiosyncratic blend of serious purpose and disarming humour, The Secret Painter is a fitting tribute to its subject"
"A fascinating one-off biography, which lays out the hypocrisy and snobbery of this country's "cultural elite" with an enviable lightness of touch [ . . . ] a book with steel in its heart"
"This warm, often funny book, is a real gem"
"Joe Tucker is a natural storyteller and The Secret Painter is a brilliant, engrossing read. Tucker discovers and uncovers a rich and fascinating tale hidden in his own family. What he finds, and how he acts upon it, will change their world forever, and his book serves as an important reminder to all of us that the great stories in our lives are often closer to us than we think"
— LEMN SISSAY
"[A] warm, witty and honest book. [Joe Tucker] approaches his uncle's life with all the love of a relative, but also the clear-eyed curiosity of a true biographer"
"A moving account of how the creative imagination can flourish in the most inhospitable circumstances"
"[A] slim but fascinating portrait"
"Reporting about outsider art is usually told from a third-person perspective, often ending up clinical, cold, and distant. This book’s first-person narrative skillfully avoids this, as the author’s discoveries about himself go hand-in-hand with discoveries about his uncle."
"I was hooked from the first couple of pages . . . A lovely read"
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL