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To Joe Tucker, Eric was just his loving and funny uncle, a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout Joe’s life.

A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost 80 years in Warrington, he had an almost compulsive need to charm strangers with working men’s club comedy routines, and appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie in the high street, and to the local pub. But behind closed doors, he had amassed over 500 of his own remarkable paintings - mostly depicting working-class social life in the industrial North West.

Tucker received no formal art education and left school at 14, working variously as a boxer, a steelworker, a gravedigger and a building labourer.

His family had always known he had painting as a hobby, but it was only right at the end of his life, that they realised the true extent of his creative output.

His work came to public attention following his death in 2018, when the family organised a two-day exhibition in his ex-council house.

His paintings of street scenes and busy pubs and clubs were described by art critic Ruth Millington as having an ‘authenticity and a sophisticated innocence’, their discovery marking ‘a significant contribution to modern British art’.

Episode Five
Eric’s family organise an exhibition of his paintings in his old house. It’s astonishingly well-attended, and the event is covered by local, and then by national, media. Critics describe his work as ‘a remarkable, important find’.

Read by Paul Ready
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: David Blount

A Pier production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4

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