The Secret Painter: Joe Tucker and the Nature of Intangible Heritage

We Can Be Weirdos

Global

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality

4.9 • 736 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

" But I kind of loved the power of that, the power of weirdness"

"The Secret Painter" is a memoir by Joe Tucker that delves into the concealed artistic life of his uncle, Eric Tucker. Eric, a laborer from Warrington, Cheshire, led a double life, secretly creating over 500 paintings and approximately 1,000 sketches depicting mid-20th-century working-class northern life. His works, often compared to those of LS Lowry, capture scenes of pubs, theaters, and street life with authenticity and depth.

Despite his sociable nature, Eric was reserved about his art, seldom sharing his creations publicly. His family discovered his extensive collection only after his death in 2018, leading to posthumous exhibitions that garnered significant public and media attention.

Joe Tucker's memoir offers a touching and thoughtful exploration of his uncle's life, reflecting on themes of class, ambition, loneliness, and community. The book provides insight into Eric's personal history, his dedication to art, and the broader disconnect between working-class culture and the art establishment.

"The Secret Painter" serves as a poignant tribute to Eric Tucker's unwavering artistic commitment, bringing his life's work into the public eye and celebrating the extraordinary found in unexpected places.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a global player original podcast.
0:05.0	Warning, the following podcast contains strong language, bizarre theories,
0:10.0	unexplainable experiences, and a paranormal pot noodle.
0:14.0	It may not be suitable for younger weirdos.
0:17.0	We definitely felt in the moment, you know, we'd seen something weird, albeit involving
0:23.6	the price tag on a pop noodle lid, you know. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of We Can Be Weirdos. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am coming to you today from my home at Roughway by Sea.
0:59.4	And today's episode deals with something that I absolutely love, which is finding stories that haven't been told.
1:05.1	You know, characters who've been relegated to the footnotes of history and digging up all that we know about them and presenting them to a
1:11.7	wider audience. I love it when historians find obscure characters and champion them. But on top of
1:16.6	that, I love it when someone looks at the world around them and says that's a story that needs to be
1:22.1	told. And so I'm going to ask you before we get into this episode, as you're listening to it,
1:26.4	to think, who is that in your life
1:28.1	is there a relative in your life a friend in your life a local person from your community whose story
1:33.4	is just absolutely phenomenal that you wish could be told and whether or not you should just make
1:37.4	that decision and go do you know what maybe i'm going to be the person to tell it because that's what's
1:41.1	happened in this case there is a new book out in the world. It is called
1:44.6	The Secret Painter and it's written by a brilliant comedy writer called Joe Tucker. Now this
1:50.3	interview came about today because a couple of weeks ago I did a show called The Sunday
1:54.6	Papers Live, which is brilliant by the way. If you live in London, you should check out and see
1:58.4	if you can get to one. It's like an all-day festival,
2:06.2	and you get a bunch of talks from various different people, and it's sort of themed as if the newspapers suddenly were real for a day, as if the articles had jumped out onto stage. It's not
2:11.0	topical, but it's themed to like news, sports, culture, science, and so on. And I was picked to do the science section of the day.
	...

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