A portrait painted by an acclaimed Victorian artist while he was a long-term psychiatric patient is to return to the hospital where he spent 20 years, which is now also home to a museum.
Richard Dadd was sent to Bethlem Royal hospital in south London, from which the derogatory term “bedlam” is derived, as a “criminal lunatic” after stabbing his father to death in 1843. He was later moved to Broadmoor, where he remained until his death in 1886.
He painted Portrait of a Young Man 10 years after arriving at Bethlem. The identity of the sitter is unknown, but is thought to be either a fellow patient or Dr William Hood, the hospital’s physician superintendent, who encouraged Dadd to continue to paint. The sitter is painted in a fantasy garden.
The work has been loaned by the Tate to the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, where it will be displayed alongside an 1857 photographic portrait showing Dadd painting at Bethlem. The exhibition, The Faces We Present, opens in February.
In the early years of his artistic life, Dadd was recognised as one of the great talents of his generation. He studied at the Royal Academy and attracted wealthy patrons. He became well-known for his depictions of fairies and for painting fantastical scenes.
One of his best-known works, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, also painted at Bethlem and also now owned by the Tate, inspired the rock star Freddie Mercury to write a song with the same name that was recorded by Queen in 1974.
Dadd’s mental health began to deteriorate while he was touring the Middle East in 1842. He suffered from delusions, and shortly after returning home to Kent he killed his father, believing him to be the devil.
His delusions continued at Bethlem, the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, but he was given painting materials and a workspace.
According to Jonathan Jones, the Guardian’s art critic, “far from brutal places that tortured him, Victorian asylums gave Dadd a peculiar freedom from his own time. The pure personal vision his illness unleashed will always make him one of the most captivating British artists of the 19th century”.
Portrait of a Young Man will return to Bethlem for the first time in 170 years for an exhibition of portraits and self-portraits by people living with mental ill health. The exhibition is a collaboration between the Bethlem Museum of the Mind and the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust.
Colin Gale, the director of the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, said: “Every day, human beings present public faces that mask the tumultuous feelings churning under the surface.
“Mental health problems are experienced by a great many people and in all areas of society and there is no hard and fast distinction between the users and providers of mental health services. In some cases, clinician and patient may be the same person.
“Many of those whose perspectives are represented here are, of course, artists, but they are also brothers, sisters, parents, friends and much more. Everyone is more than the sum of their different roles.”
The Faces We Present is at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, 22 February to 17 June. Admission is free.
