Richard Dadd
English painterWikipedia
14
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
5
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Search complete. 14 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Richard Dadd".
Oct 30, 2026
SteveHOST
So this strange little gallery was showing a collection of Sam Doyle's work.
SteveHOST
And as I was in central London to see Sam Doyle, I decided to go over to the Royal Academy to see the collection of Richard Dadd they've got on show.
SteveHOST
And the contrast of seeing these two exhibitions one after another really struck me because I was absolutely captivated by every single piece of Sam Doyle's work.
SteveHOST
There's something about it that just drew me in and made me feel something that I couldn't possibly describe.
SteveHOST
But the Richard Dadd exhibition was a very different experience.
SteveHOST
And I'm not saying one was better than the other.
SteveHOST
It was just a very different experience.
SteveHOST
And while I'm deeply fascinated by Richard Dadd's story, look it up because it's a tragic and fascinating story.
Diane PurkissGUEST
Yeah, Victorians were actually quite interested in what I would describe as the dark side of fairies.
Diane PurkissGUEST
So Victorian fairy painters like John Anster Fitzgerald or Richard Dadd or even Arthur Conan Doyle's father were really keen on the idea that fairies are pretty scary.
Diane PurkissGUEST
And they didn't portray fairies as necessarily innocent or positive.
Diane PurkissGUEST
Even Tinkerbell, who's really kind of, I guess, an Edwardian and Georgian fairy, is actually quite a scary character.
Will MacleanGUEST
For those who don't know, it's an insanely detailed depiction of a thing that's alluded to in Romeo and Juliet where a hazelnut is being split.
Will MacleanGUEST
Richard Dadd as an artist was in an asylum when he painted this painting.
Will MacleanGUEST
He was in Bethlehem Asylum.
Will MacleanGUEST
Because he killed his father.
Will MacleanGUEST
but it is i went with a friend and she went it's tiny the minute we saw it because she is familiar through
Brett BennerHOST
the book it's absolutely tiny i thought the same thing i because i saw the picture of you on instagram with it and i was like wow yeah
Will MacleanGUEST
you expected to cover one wall it's like yes and he worked on this painting for about eight nine ten years and it it is it looks like it's been worked on for 10 years um because it absolutely swarms with detail it's almost like something under a slide under a microscope there's just so much going on in it and it's just full of stuff you know it's like there are little stories in there and illusions and you know it has been an inspiration to quite a lot of artists you know the Queen song about it is in the book Alan Moore talks about it in one of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes and you know it's dad's tragedy is sort of separate to that picture even though it's inextricably bound up with it and i find it i don't know i just i just really like it i really like art i'm a fan of art i wanted to be an artist as a teenager and then thank god had a realization i was never going to be good enough you know i mean that saved me a lot of time but i have always had an appreciation of art and i really like it again there's a thing where i think it a lot of people feel excluded from it there's a lot of snobbishness about it but i think what i really like is when something you have a visceral reaction to and that painting is something i think everyone has a visceral reaction to you know it's it's charming and almost overbearingly so and it's full of hints it seems to hint at a story that's not quite finished and i just i just love it
Brett BennerHOST
I find it fascinating with this particular painting, the way it's used, but also his story and kind of this schizophrenic break.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
he probably did a hundred maybe fewer paintings than we know of maybe 200 in his lifetime and the vast majority of them were just watercolors on paper um but That's not where he started.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
So Richard Dadd was born to a...
Micah ChristensenGUEST
He was the fourth of seven children.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
He was born to a chemist named Richard Dadd.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
Sorry, Robert Dadd.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
And he was 17 years old when his family moved from Kent, England.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
William Powell Frith is an artist we'll talk about another time, who is, along with Dickens, one of these people who painted a lot of, depicted middle-class life.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
And William Powell Frith gets very remembered.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
That's not where he started.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
So Richard Dadd was born to a...
Micah ChristensenGUEST
He was the fourth of seven children.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
He was born to a chemist named Richard Dadd.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
Sorry, Robert Dadd.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
And he was 17 years old when his family moved from Kent, England.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
William Palfrith is an artist we'll talk about another time, who is, along with Dickens, one of these people who painted a lot of, depicted middle-class life.
Micah ChristensenGUEST
And William Palfrith gets very remembered.
Francis YoungGUEST
I think we've seen manifestations of that interest in other media as well, such as film.
Francis YoungGUEST
You know, you've got events happening at the moment, like the exhibition on Richard Dadd, the Victorian fairy painter at the Royal Academy.
Francis YoungGUEST
And people are willing to talk about this stuff in a way that I'm not sure in my lifetime...
Francis YoungGUEST
there has ever been a time when it's been more mainstream to be talking about fairies.