The Art of Bedlam: Richard Dadd
Watts Gallery, Guildford
On 28 August 1843 the painter Richard Dadd and his father, Robert, took an evening stroll through the park surrounding Cobham Hall in Kent. When they reached a circle of elm trees the 26-year-old painter suddenly attacked his father, punching him in the head and slashing his neck with a razor before stabbing him in the chest with a five-inch rigger’s knife. When his father, who struggled, was finally dead Dadd tidied up the body and fled to Dover, where he boarded a boat for France. Travelling south from Paris by coach, he then attacked a fellow passenger, inflicting four deep razor wounds before he was overpowered and taken into custody.
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