The Secret Painter: Joe Tucker's 'witty and touching' memoir explores lifelong hidden talent

Eric Tucker – the uncle of this book's author, Joe Tucker – was a labourer from Warrington, Lancashire.

A bachelor who spent decades living with his mother, he "cultivated a dishevelled look", said Houman Barekat in The Guardian: he wore a "faded bomber jacket held together by sticky tape" and used a rope to hold up his trousers. Although generally solitary, he could be sociable, and "enjoyed carousing in disreputable drinking dens".

And he harboured a secret. When he died, aged 84, in 2018, his nephew Joe, a screenwriter, discovered more than 500 paintings in the attic of his council house. Joe knew his uncle painted "in his spare time", but was still astonished by what he found. Eric's "vignettes of working-class life" – scenes from pubs (such as Two Smokers, pictured), theatres and nightclubs; portraits of pigeon fanciers, carnival workers and down-and-outs – struck Joe as evidence of a serious talent. In The Secret Painter, he "unpacks the eccentric life behind this remarkable story". The result is a "tenderly affectionate, witty and touching" memoir – and a "fitting tribute to its subject".

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Joe's "fascinating portrait" of his uncle contains scenes that "will make you wince", said Miranda Green in the Financial Times. Eric's childhood was deprived and marked by bereavement. He had no formal art training, and in early adulthood suffered "upsetting" art-world rejections, which convinced him to put his paintings "out of sight", and to settle into poorly paid manual labour. Yet Joe also recounts the efforts the family made to win recognition for Eric's talent. After his death, they converted his "modest former home into a gallery for a weekend". Some small shows followed, at which many locals cried at seeing "their world celebrated". Eric's paintings are now highly sought after, giving "Joe and his family belated recognition for their enigmatic, brilliant relative".

Eric's paintings have been likened to those of L.S. Lowry, who was famed for his depictions of the industrial North, said Michael Bird in The Telegraph. The comparison, however, "rings false": Eric's "ruddy-cheeked working-class cast" are quite different from Lowry's "matchstick" figures. While he "certainly had a gift", it's harder to argue he had the kind of "intensely distinctive personal vision" possessed by some self-taught artists. Still, "The Secret Painter" is perhaps less about his art than it is about the "hidden life that expressed itself through its making". And, as such, it's a "wry yet moving account of how the creative imagination can flourish in the most inhospitable circumstances".