1817-1886 was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. Dadd was born at Chatham, Medway in Kent, England, the son of a chemist. His aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age, leading to his admission to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 20. With William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, Henry O'Neil and others, he founded The Clique, of which he was generally considered the leading talent. In July 1842, Sir Thomas Phillips, the former mayor of Newport, chose Dadd to accompany him as his draftsman on an expedition through Europe to Greece, Turkey, Palestine and finally Egypt. In November of that year they spent a gruelling two weeks in Palestine, passing from Jerusalem to Jordan and returning across the Engaddi wilderness. Toward the end of December, while travelling up the Nile by boat, Dadd underwent a dramatic personality change, becoming delusional and increasingly violent, and believing himself to be under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris. His condition was initially thought to be sunstroke. On his return in the spring of 1843, he was diagnosed to be of unsound mind and was taken by his family to recuperate in the countryside village of Cobham, Kent. In August of that year, having become convinced that his father was the Devil in disguise, Dadd killed him with a knife and fled for France. En route to Paris Dadd attempted to kill another tourist with a razor, but was overpowered and was arrested by the police. Dadd confessed to the killing of his father and was returned to England, where he was committed to the criminal department of Bethlem psychiatric hospital (also known as Bedlam). Here and subsequently at the newly created Broadmoor, Dadd was cared for (and encouraged to continue painting) by the likes of Drs William Wood and Sir W. Charles Hood, in an enlightened manner. Which condition he suffered from is unclear, but it is usually understood to be a form of paranoid schizophrenia.He appears to have been genetically predisposed to mental illness; two of his siblings were similarly afflicted, while a third had "a private attendant" for unknown reasons.In the hospital he was allowed to continue to paint and it was here that many of his masterpieces were created, including his most celebrated painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which he worked on between 1855 and 1864. Also dating from the 1850s are the thirty-three watercolour drawings titled Sketches to Illustrate the Passions, which include Grief or Sorrow, Love, and Jealousy, as well as Agony-Raving Madness and Murder. Like most of his works these are executed on a small scale and feature protagonists whose eyes are fixed in a peculiar, unfocused stare.  Related Paintings of Richard Dadd :. | Fairy Fellers Master Stroke | The Artist's Halt in the Desert (mk46) | The Tombs of the Caliphs | Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke | Imaginary Egyptian Harem |
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Thomas Hickey
was an Irish painter. Born in Dublin, Hickey was the son of Noah, a confectioner in Capel Street, and Anne Hickey. A younger brother was John Hickey, the sculptor. He was trained at the Royal Dublin Society schools under Robert West. Hickey painted primarily portraits and genre scenes. He traveled widely, working in India, Portugal, Italy and England, residing in Bath between 1776 and 1780. On his voyage to India, the vessel in which he was travelling was captured by French and Spanish fleets which led him to Lisbon, where, after receiving a number of commissions, he remained for several years. He eventually reached Bengal and stayed there until 1791 when he returned to England. He then traveled as far as Peking, China with George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney as the expedition's official portrait painter. He returned to Ireland shortly after the death of his brother John in January 1796. In 1797, he was commissioned by Dr. Robert Emmet, State Physician for Ireland, to paint a portrait of the doctor's son, Robert, and daughter, Mary. By 1798 he had returned to India where he landed just in time for the start of the Fourth Mysore War, which kept him engaged in painting. He resided in Madras until his death in 1824. In addition to his artistic talents, he is reputed to have been a sparkling conversationalist who rarely failed to charm his sitters. The Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Tate and the Victoria Art Gallery (Bath, England) are among the public collections having paintings by Thomas Hickey.
Julien Hudson
(1811-1844) was a 19th Century free man of color who lived in New Orleans. He was a successful painter and art teacher. He is known as the first African American or French Creole of Color operating in America by whom a self-portrait was found.
Nagy, Sandor
Hungarian, 1869-1950