Richard Dadd Exhibition in London

The Royal Academy of Arts in London is currently hosting a highly acclaimed exhibition of over 100 works by the famous Victorian artist Richard Dadd.  Called Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam this major exhibition will, we think, prove to be the most significant of his work for over half a century.  Dadd suffered from paranoid schizophrenia for most of his life and it led to him tragically killing his own father.

Born in Chatham, Kent Dadd was one of seven children, four of whom would suffer from mental ill health in their lives.  In his adolescence Dadd had a prodigious talent and became the rising star of the London art scene.  As is so often the case, schizophrenia arrived into Dadd’s life in his early twenties.  Following a trip to Egypt he became increasingly mentally disturbed and stabbed and killed his father with whom he was very close.

Dadd was subsequently confined in the Bethlem Hospital in London and then later in the new state-of-the-art asylum at Broadmoor in Berkshire where he continued to paint for the rest of his life.  In both of these institutions he was encouraged by his doctors to paint.  A new and enlightened approach to mental ill health had inspired the Victorians who believed that, with rest and useful occupation, people with even serious mental illnesses could eventually recover.  However, Dadd was to spend the remainder of his life in confinement and he died in Broadmoor in 1886 of TB for which, at the time, there was no cure.

Following his death, interest in his work waned but in recent years it has seen a resurgence.  A number of his works can be seen in the Tate Gallery in London. Earlier this year the Tate loaned his work, Portrait of a Young Man to the Bethlem Museum of the Mind which is sited in the former psychiatric hospital.

Like so many stories of schizophrenia from that era, Dadd’s life was a story of what might have been.  Had he been alive when the new antipsychotic medicines and became available then perhaps his story would have turned out very differently.  And yet, even through that tragedy, he left us with a rich body of work and a life story that still has relevance to us in modern times.

Writing about the exhibition in Time Out, Annabel Downes made the acute observation that, “Together these works remind us that, although Dadd’s body was confined his imagination never was”.

Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam runs from 25^th July 2026 to 25^th October 2026 https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/ .

The full story of Richard Dadd’s struggle with schizophrenia can be found on the Living with Schizophrenia website at . https://livingwithschizophreniauk.org/richard-dadd/

Contact us on email at: info@livingwithschizophreniauk.org

Image:  Portrait of a Young Man, Richard Dadd, 1853, From Wikimedia Commons  now in the public domain.  In the Tate collection.