{"id":77321,"date":"2025-05-05T20:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/77321\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T20:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:12:14","slug":"secret-lowry-who-left-house-full-of-unseen-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/77321\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Secret Lowry’ who left house full of unseen art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Tucker hid his life’s work in his home for decades\"CollectArtist Eric Tucker(Image: Liverpool ECHO)<\/p>\n

A man, dubbed the “Secret Lowry,” left a house full of unseen artwork that is set to sell for \u00a31m in total sales. Boxer and building labourer Eric Tucker, from Warrington,<\/a> hid his life\u2019s work depicting northern working-class settings in his end-terrace home for years.<\/p>\n

His artwork, which has been compared to LS Lowry, was only discovered after his death. And even his family had no idea of his talent.<\/a><\/p>\n

Eric died in July 2018 at the age of 86, and his family later uncovered nearly 500 exceptional paintings and sketches piled in his house. A number were also hidden for safekeeping in compostable bags in an old air raid shelter in the garden, Cheshire Live reports.<\/a><\/p>\n

At two previous Mayfair exhibitions, the family sold a number of his pieces for over \u00a3750,000. A third exhibition started last Friday, May 2, revealing some of the pieces of art that have never previously been showcased.<\/a><\/p>\n

The exhibition<\/a> will continue until Friday, May 30. It is estimated that sales from the exhibition will take the total amount the paintings have sold for to around the \u00a31 million mark.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe late Eric Tucker, who was a boxer and building labourer<\/p>\n

Eric\u2019s nephew, Joe Tucker, 43, has written a book about his uncle, The Secret Painter, in which he dives into the unassuming manner in which the art was revealed by Eric\u2019s brother (Joe\u2019s father), Tony Tucker, 83. Joe, a scriptwriter from Warrington<\/a>, said: \u201cIt was very much his style to be almost chronically modest and unforthcoming with his talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that he liked to paint because he lived with my grandparents and never left home, and he liked to use their front room as a sort of painting room. And he made a comment to my dad, when he knew his life was coming to an end, that he would\u2019ve loved to have had an exhibition in the local museum and gallery.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad kind of thought, \u2018Well, Eric, you could have mentioned this in the 84 and a half years prior\u2019, but then he started to catalogue the paintings. He saw it at first as a task that needed to be done, but eventually he saw the astonishing quantity and quality of the work \u2013 he was so overwhelmed by it.<\/p>\n

\"EricEric Tucker’s house<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, I think we counted nearly 500 paintings in the house, not including innumerable drawers full of his drawings.\u201d The self-effacing style led to his nickname the Secret Lowry and an international art world frenzy, with thousands heading from across the country to his home on King George Crescent in Warrington to view his artwork over two days in October 2018.<\/p>\n

An exhibition at Warrington Museum & Art Gallery from November 2019 to February 2020 soon followed. Between July and August 2021, a joint Mayfair exhibition across Alon Zakaim Fine Art Gallery and Connaught Brown Fine Art Gallery took place and became the fastest selling in either gallery’s history – completely selling out in the first 48 hours.<\/p>\n

\"'Its‘Its News Time’ artwork by Eric Tucker<\/p>\n

An almost equally successful second Mayfair exhibition in these two galleries was held in December 2022. On the nickname, Joe said: \u201cI don’t really know how influenced by Lowry he was really \u2013 but the comparison is kind of obvious given what he painted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that his favourite painter was an artist called Edward Borough, but I think he’d be very, very amused by it really. It\u2019s hard to imagine him expressing too much about it, but I think he\u2019d certainly feel some pride that his work has been recognised, but maybe also a bit of embarrassment.<\/p>\n

\"JoeJoe Tucker at an exhibition of Eric Tucker’s work<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I was fascinated by writing the book was how he discovered art. Eric\u2019s parents weren\u2019t into art, there weren\u2019t any art books in the house, they didn\u2019t take him to galleries, and he wasn\u2019t part of any local art group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was absolutely something he found himself and pursued in a very solitary way. And that kind of withdrawn and unforthcoming nature has led to a mystique around it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never even spoke to family about it, and I look at some of the pieces, and I can only speculate about why he decided to paint that or what he was thinking, which lends itself to a bit of mystery.” But Joe does recall his uncle providing at least some inspiration for his work.<\/p>\n

\"'Bruiser‘Bruiser with Fag’ artwork by Eric Tucker<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI remember him telling me the greatest song ever written was Dirty Old Town by Ewan MacColl, which sums up his life. Eric was absolutely of that world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this third and quite likely final exhibition in Mayfair, we want to sell the work as an act of preservation, as people will look after the paintings, but also to generate money for a trust to establish a legacy for him and his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s biography and memoir of Eric and his life, The Secret Painter, was released in January 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Tucker hid his life’s work in his home for decadesArtist Eric Tucker(Image: Liverpool ECHO) A man, dubbed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,2348,8838,457,16,15,8718],"class_list":{"0":"post-77321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-nostalgia","14":"tag-people","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-warrington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114457054260262597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}