Eric Tucker, who died in 2018, left a former Warrington council house full of messy hoardings and over 500 paintings that he’d produced over the previous 60 years. Of course his family knew that he painted but they had no idea of the extent – or the astonishing, consistent quality. Eric, who was eccentric, unpredictable, tramp-like in appearance but much loved by his often exasperated family, was secretive about his art. But then, in his final years, he let it be known that actually he’d quite like an exhibition.
His brother and sister and nieces and nephews tried hard but time outran them and, in the end, the first exhibition of the man the Daily Mail dubbed “the secret Lowry” ran as a memorial after Eric Tucker’s death.
Eric Tucker didn’t go to art school. He left school at 14, worked in manual labouring jobs and for a while boxed professionally. There is though, evidently, an artistic gene in this family since his younger brother Tony did go to art school and worked in graphic design. So did Tony’s son Joe, a script-writer, who wrote this book about his Uncle Eric. Published in 2025, it was serialised on BBC Radio 4 and became a Sunday Times best seller. I discovered it when a friend came to coffee and accidentally left it in my house.
Eric Tucker was a complex man who rejected, with a vengeance, anything he regarded as pretentious. Of course he loathed modernism in art and got his education from making weekly trips to Manchester (two hours each way) to visit art galleries and enjoy a pint. Joe Tucker describes these as quasi pilgrimages. Ertic’s art depicts working class people in urban environments in streets, pubs, shops and out and about. He also did self portraits and street performers such as circus clowns. There are number of illustrations in Joe Tucker’s book or you can call up dozens of examples online – because, posthumously, Eric Tucker is now quite well known.
The first exhibition was in the house that Tucker shared with his mother until her death when he was 76. They stripped out some rooms, presented some as Tucker left them and had everything painted white. Against this they hung paintings and put together a basic catalogue. Joe Tucker led the publicity campaign, of which the details are fascinating, The art world is enclosed and impenetrable. Approaches that his and his father tried seemed to hit brick walls and as the date approached Joe Tucker was almost certain that nobody would attend and that the whole thing would be a damp squib. Then, at the eleventh hour, there was a tiny breakthrough in the form of an article which was picked up by the BBC Today programme. Suddenly the floodgates of publicity burst open. And so many people attended the exhibition that there was a long winding queue and crowd management skills were required. All this makes a wonderful, very British, uplifting story of ordinary people competing with Big People and triumphing. It would make a touching film in the tradition of Brassed Off, Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots or Made in Dagenham. How about Ian McKellen as Eric and Rory Kinnear as Joe?
In some ways, Eric was a troubled man. His father died in the Second World War when he was only 10 and his brother Tony was born posthumously. He adored his mother and never really established a relationship with his stepfather although Joe Tucker stresses that the latter was a very decent, loveable man and beloved grandfather. Yet, somehow they all lived in that small house, eventually establishing a uneasy truce whereby Eric had the front room for painting and his “parents” occupied the back.
Joe Tucker explores Eric’s background extensively including finding a woman who may once have been a love interest but he also respects his uncle’s privacy and refuses to intrude too much. Eric wasn’t quite a recluse. He had strong relationships with all his family but there were often arguments and disagreements. Joe remembers spending a lot of time at his grandparents’s house in childhood. Uncle Eric, of whom he was very fond, would take him to school and pick him up as well as offering plenty of whacky advice. Eric always, for instance, detested any form of authoritarianism and the account of his compulsory stint in National Service is witty and faintly poignant. For all that he was a very private man and Joe uncovers a lot of things which he didn’t know during Eric’s lifetime.
There have been several exhibitions since Eric’s death and his paintings fetch good prices – quite a legacy. In a way it’s pity he didn’t live to see it although he would probably have loathed the commercial aspect of it all and withdrawn.
Joe Tucker’s book is an interesting, affectionate memorial too and has, no doubt, done much to help put Eric Tucker on the map. It’s very readable (I devoured it in two days) and one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I’ve read in a while.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves:
