The Secret Painter

by Joe Tucker, Unknown Author

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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Art, Audiobook, Memoir, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Joe Tucker is a British screenwriter, director and animator.

He trained at the National Film & Television School where he made the award-winning short film For the Love of God.

He is the nephew of the painter Eric Tucker about whom he has written a book, The Secret Painter.

Abridged from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Christmas Carol ꧁꧂ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was staying with one of my sisters & she thought I might enjoy this short tale of a working class man with a (mostly hidden) passion for painting & sketching.

Towards the end of his life, disabled & frail Eric Tucker expressed a desire to have an exhibition of his artwork & his family try very hard to bring this about for him. (I really was touched by all the love in this book) But due to art gatekeepers being unwilling or unable to help with having an exhibition, Eric died before his dream could be realised.

Working through their grief, the Tucker clan realise they could stage the exhibition themselves. His scriptwriter nephew, Joe goes through his memories to try to discover what made his very complicated uncle tick. Towards the end of this inspirational book I was in tears & it is a very long time since a book has done that.

A beautiful story & Joe Tucker is a very gifted writer. I hope he carries on with a writing career.

If you want to check out Eric's art there is a lot now online.

but here is a great example;

I apologise that I haven't done this amazing book justice. I'm back home, so I don't have the book with me to refer to & I just seem to lack the word to describe how moving I found this reading experience.

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Mervyn Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

My book of the year, so far. Yes, it's only February, but every other book I read this year is going to have to go some to be better. Firstly, the subject-matter. A working-class eccentric who spent his life painting and drawing hundreds of masterpieces that almost no one saw while he was alive. What a story! Secondly, the writing. Joe Tucker is a scriptwriter by trade. And it shows here. Crisp, concise, uncluttered, and with a great narrative drive, he's produced a tale that is as dramatic as it is moving. His uncle would be proud (I think!). I hope Tucker junior is working on a TV (or film) script for this story. Jim Broadbent would be great for the lead.

[Michael Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you hope you will find. That you just can't put down when you do. It tells the story of Eric Tucker a working class painter who knew no fame in his lifetime. A man determined to do things his way. It was the creative process that was important to Tucker. Not what may come next for the artist in the event of recognition. Depicting life in the community where he lived, it's characters, and their setting drove Tucker's prodigious output. A social and historical record in oils and watercolours. Authentic working class art produced in an industrial town. Joe Tucker deserves our thanks for bringing his uncle's uncompromising personal story, and life's work, to a much wider audience.

[Alanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredibly moving account of a working-class man living an ordinary life, whilst quietly doing something extraordinary. I couldn’t put it down. This is what art is for - the ability to recognise yourself and own experiences reflected in art is a joy.

“Your hometown is like your family - you’re allowed to make fun, but nobody else better try it. And in answer to those who called it [Warrington] Britain’s worst town for culture, my uncle, I know, would say: rubbish. There’s more culture to be found in one pub in the town than a dozen listed buildings.”

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

What an absolute joy of a book. An amazing tribute to his uncle Eric, a moving family portrait, and a timely look at who has access to art and expression. Nostalgic and uplifting, I would recommend this to almost anybody.

[Jake Knapper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual bag, the old non-fiction ! But I have to say, bloody marvelous! The story was very interesting and really made me think about how many people there must have been who have talents that perhaps never see the light of day. The story was almost like it had been developed for the big screen, rather than a true account ! it got quite arty for bits and delved into my mans Psyche a bit too much but good reward to stick with it. (Hollywood, get this in the pictures)

[Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read hundreds of books but this was the first one that made me cry. Maybe it says more about me than the book, but this is one of the best books I’ve read in years. You don’t need to be an art aficionado to appreciate it. It was amazing.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short biography of the until recently unknown painter Eric Tucker, written by his nephew. The author's presentation of his uncle's life is a little out of the ordinary, as it is not written in a strictly chronological way, but chapters are more themed around something that reveals aspects of the artist, in a way that mimics the gradual revelation of the extent of his work (500+ paintings and countless drawings and studies) after his death.

The preparation of an exhibition (which Eric Tucker had always wanted, although rarely mentioned while alive) by his family after he passed away, and whether or not one could even be arranged, brings an added sense of tension to the book. Otherwise it tells the often amusing and intriguing story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary secret, one who leaves a lasting cultural legacy through his artwork for his hometown of Warrington.

[Emily Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved reading this book, felt a kinship with Eric Tucker and found his story moving. His story made me consider the real value of art and why we make art.

[Francis Pellow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating story.

[Debby Binns · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the BBC Abridged version of this book. The story is about Eric Tucker who
worked as a labourer for several decades before taking early retirement in his 50s due to chronic arthritis. In his spare time he painted Lowry-esque paintings of working-class life. After his death in 2018 at the age of 84, his family found a stash of more than 500 paintings in his terrace house in Warrington. This is the story of his Art and Life.

[Simon Pressinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5* Brilliant. A portrait of a true working class painter, full of contradictions.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is an interesting story told in a flat to the page kind of way. A working class, confirmed bachelor - who spent his entire life living at home with his mother - was also a prolific painter of working class scenes - bars, parks, streets. Lowry-like, but not quite Lowry. A solitary man, who somehow taught himself to paint, and built up his skill over many years and paintings. There’s a woman in there somewhere, I think. The book is written by his nephew, who left home and moved to the big city and became a script writer. This book is a labour of love, perhaps. Or it’s a labour of guilt. I don’t know. All I know is it’s a slog. Somehow he makes the story less interesting. It can’t be easy to write a book. Hell, I’ve never done it. If you took all the things I’ve ever written and put them all together they could be a book, and maybe they’d make sense next to each other in some way if you read it like that. Or maybe it wouldn’t mean a damn thing. I’ve never written a book, but I like writing. Maybe that’s enough.

[Aaron Culley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt sorry for Eric in the end, I felt life past him by as he used Art to fill the void of not having someone to love.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Seeing all this work for the first time, I was moved to realise that my uncle was an artist. Of course, to some extent I'd known that. But what I’d thought of as maybe a pastime — inasmuch as I thought about it at all — I realised was the centre of his life, at the core of who he was. In an instant, my perception of him shifted. Even his various eccentricities seemed to make a new kind of sense, rearranging themselves around this fact. His uncompromising nature, his need for control, his obsessive collecting, even his lifelong attachment to his mother: they were all practically clichés of an artist’s life.” Close to the end of his life, Joe Tucker’s uncle Eric Tucker says he wishes he’d had an exhibition of his paintings during his lifetime: so begins the work that forms the backdrop of The Secret Painter, a long process of unearthing and cataloguing Eric’s works, a task which was not completed until after his death, and which yielded five hundred and forty works stashed away in every gap and crevice of his house. Joe Tucker chronicles his uncle’s life in the wake of the realisation not only of the prolific output, but of its quality, and its significance in being both by and about working class people. “This was his process. The secret painter. It strikes me that it was a quietly maverick act to begin to draw the places he drank in and the people around him - to move from participant to observer. And given he didn't know any other artists, it was also an inherently lonely choice. I wonder what came first. Did he pick up this practice because he found himself alone, or was it the other way around?” This book so movingly and absorbingly accounts for Eric’s life and his work, filling in as many gaps as it finds unfillable, and recounts how the Tucker family’s quest to do right by Eric’s last wishes finds its eventual — and very emotional — success.

[Stephen the Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating exploration of an undiscovered artist- Eric Tucker.

Told by his nephew , Joe, this is an incredibly read exploring the life of a “ hidden” artist. A man who produced over 400 paintings in his terraced house and lived from the outside was a “ normal “ life ( what does that mean?)

A man with no formal art education but who self- taught spent his life capturing life in the northwest of England on canvas for over fifty years. Eric’s life was varied and in many ways curtailed through circumstance and choice.

Now recognised, this book makes us consider how art is valued ( not price) and the wider acknowledgment of unsung talents that are hidden away.

This is a labour of love and a tribute to an uncle and mostly how the joy of art can ultimately bring happiness to all - if doors and barriers don’t exclude.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and affecting biography. This is the sort of non fiction I enjoy, creatively written and with a strong narrative structure. The writer himself doesn’t make this book a story about his journey discovering his uncle, which many current writers would, but instead gives grace and time to the ensemble of characters that defined the art and the working class world that Eric (the artist) lived in. It is both familiar/nostalgic and far away from my own, but I think anyone who has dedicated any time at all to art making can feel the vast poignancy of this story.

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25*

Something a little different for me. This heartfelt and fascinating memoir completely surprised me. Tucker shows us the often contradictory nature of his talented uncle - a seemingly ordinary man with a quiet life, and yet one obsessed with creating art. Joe shows us too how this revelation affected his family and led their drive to bring Eric’s paintings to the general public’s attention. 🤓

[Amber Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️Really really good

[Harriet Crossley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating story from BBC sounds!

[abi slade · Rating 3 out of 5]

3⭐️

pros ✅
- generally a very pleasant read
- a comprehensive, loving biography about an eccentric, talented man
- glad that i didn’t look at the paintings till i naturally got to them. they weren’t for me, but i can appreciate how stylised they were
- joe manages to describe his uncle in such a way that doesn’t make eric seem like a caricature but does definitely depict his extensive oddities
- very glad that eric got his flowers, albeit posthumously

cons ❌
- wanted more of his paintings!
- would’ve restructured it a bit; odd that the stuff about his birth, his biological dad dying etc was 11 chapters in
- got a smidge repetitive in the end
- did notice a spelling mistake
- joe could’ve made more of the emotions at the end, with eric getting his exhibition but not being able to see it

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent heartfelt tribute to a previously unheralded artist.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story, lovingly told, with humour too and invoking nostalgia for people and places I’ve never known but now feel fondness for.

I hope to see an exhibition of Eric Tucker’s painting at some point but in the meantime there’s a website which has more: https://www.erictucker.co.uk/work

[Joanne Parry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful moving story, made me smile and shed a tear.
The family have done Eric proud
I think many families would have a relative who they would love to know more about and who perhaps have had an interesting life that leads to intrigue and discovery?!?!?

[Justin Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of an artist who stayed undiscovered throughout his life only to be appreciated when the full extent of his collection and talent was revealed.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Year of Reading by Shakespeare and Company #4

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never rooted for a stranger more than I have Eric Tucker - an extraordinary man, artist or not.

But also a man very much loved by his family.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cried so much

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of Eric Tucker, an artist only dicovered by the world after his death, and the hundreds of paintings stored in his house, as told by his nephew who loved him.

Tucker sets off to discover how a northern man, gregarious and introvert, could have become the artist he did and hidden away so many paintings. There are many alleys Tucker can venture into: a love affair that meant more to the woman than to Eric; a mistrust of galleries; living with and looking after his mother; living with a step-father he did not get on with and a harsh time in service during the war at the hands of his officers, but to me none of these, or all of these combined, totally explain the conundrum Eric Tucker was.

We gain an image of an eccentric; faded bomber jacket, trousers tied up with string and a man who loved the seedier end of the bar and club nightlife, always on the lookout for places to visit. Here he felt at home, telling stories and drinking, and there is definitely a class element to this story both as the reader standing outside watching how difficult it is for a working class man to become and be seen as an artist, and for the material of his art to be considered relevant. Is there such a thing as realism in art?

Throughout the book are references to Lowry, probably because he was northern and considered an outsider in the world of art, but to me Eric Tucker's paintings are more like Beryl Cook who painted people out on the town in Plymouth. She did focus on the women, but gender aside, they were both commenting on the sense of community held within the bubble of alcohol and pubs and daily life. Tucker paints a dog fight, Cook paints a woman in a large fur coat flashing a man in a bowler hat. Tucker's street scenes are more Lowry like but in fact he was neither. He was his own man/artist.

What I found most interesting about Tucker was that he obviously had a need to paint. This wasn't a hobby but a necessity and all completed away from everyone's gaze. When his work was finally displayed, hundreds if not thousands queued around the block and down the street to visit and look at it and Joe Tucker states that those who seemed most moved by the work were those who were working class and who recognised what he was painting and perhaps missing it as younger generations became more upwardly mobile, perhaps moved away and found a different life, Joe Tucker included. Eric was nothing if not firmly rooted in his class and location even though he claimed he could socialise with anyone.

Although I knew much more about Eric Tucker when I had finished the book, I still felt that he hadn't been fully explained. I wasn't sure how the elements of his life defined him, particularly his time in the army and I suppose that is one of the losses when these things are not explored with the person when alive. What the book does very clearly is to explain how the scenes he painted were an integral part of Eric's life, stored and recorded in painting to give us a glimpse of a time almost forgotten now.

[Rosie Sumner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book a couple of days ago now and I’ve honestly been struggling to write a review about it because I loved it so much and I don’t feel like anything I could write would do it justice.

It made me so emotional for so many different reasons. I honestly don’t know where to begin!

I picked this up in a bookshop and read the first page, instantly Joe Tucker’s first impressions of his uncle Eric reminded me so much of my grandfather who passed away a decade ago this September. I put it down it moved me so much but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and had to go back for it.

Joe Tucker captures Eric’s character and his life so vividly that it brought me to tears. The careful analysis of everything Eric left behind including not only his paintings and his personal belongings but also his legacy in his memories and stories was so moving to read. It made me think of how strange and intimate it is once a person passes away to slowly uncover their inner life through what they leave behind both figuratively and literally.

The author does such a good job of maintaining the distance of a true biographer, allowing the reader an objective look at Eric Tucker’s life and work whilst also allowing the reader to see how much Eric was loved personally as a family member and how deeply his memory is cherished by his family and community alike.

Eric’s life and work demonstrates how art is created both by community and an absence of it. The author attempts to understand how Eric may have grappled with alienation, loneliness and a struggle for sense of belonging moving between the worlds of the working-class north and the hierarchal nature of the art scene. Not only is this book a glimpse into the elusive world of art but also a look at crucial parts of our heritage and our history in the north. Each one of Eric’s paintings doesn’t just portray one specific moment but so many memories, feelings and a sense of a place in time.

Eric Tucker’s work paints a rich and evocative portrait of a world that is now unfortunately largely lost, preserved only by those who hold it in their memories and in the stories they tell. Such people are often overlooked in our modern world that is largely youth orientated and so fast paced. In a way, Eric Tucker is one of the people that the world left behind and reading about his family’s fight to get him recognition and actualise Eric’s last wishes shows just how important it is to preserve a history that is often wilfully ignored by those who do not wish to understand. This book encourages the reader to remember how vital the seemingly ordinary elders in our community are in preserving our histories.

Eric’s passion for creation is a testament to how art is necessary for all of us. This book and the lives of the people portrayed in it will stick with me always. Would highly recommend :)