The Secret Painter

When his ne’er-do-well Uncle Eric passed away, British comedy writer and animator Tucker had no idea about the artistic legacy he left behind. The process of uncovering his uncle’s outsider art, as well as his own concurrent path of self-discovery, are the core of this beautifully written memoir. Rarely venturing from the English Midlands and never living outside his family’s cloistered home, unschooled Eric Tucker developed a particularly idiosyncratic painting style as he surreptitiously created more than 500 paintings of small pubs, faceless people, and street scenes from a postindustrial world that had been subsumed by waves of gentrification, modernization, or both. Indifferent to acclaim, Eric never needed to show his paintings but found a profound need to paint. Partly out of family fealty and partly out of newfound respect for his uncle’s skill and insight, the author doggedly navigates constant twists and turns as he endeavors to get his uncle’s paintings catalogued, exhibited, and ultimately appreciated.