Artist: Eric Tucker

Alon Zakaim Fine Art and Connaught Brown present ‘Eric Tucker: Characters and Places’ – a solo retrospective on the Warrington-based painter, whose urban scenes captured the essence of his local community.

Former boxer, labourer, and occasional gravedigger - Eric Tucker’s life may seem an unlikely foundation for one of Britain’s newly celebrated Modern artists, often dubbed the ‘Secret Lowry’. Yet, behind the unassuming façade of a man who enjoyed placing a bet on the horses and frequenting the local pub was a dedicated and prolific artist, quietly capturing the spirit of his Warrington surroundings.

While many knew that Tucker often travelled armed with a pencil and scraps of paper, few fully grasped the true depth of his passion nor the vast body of work that he produced throughout his life. In The Secret Painter, published in late January 2025 to critical acclaim, Joe Tucker reveals his uncle’s extraordinary story, exploring the hidden world of a self-taught artist who, despite battling arthritis, painted largely in secrecy for six decades. Remarkably, it was only after Tucker’s death in July 2018, at the age of 86, that his family uncovered the true extent of his life’s work - over 370 paintings, along with a substantial number of watercolours and sketches. These were packed to the rafters in his modest end-terrace, with some even stored for safekeeping in compostable bags in an old air raid shelter in the garden.

Tucker’s art first gained public attention in October 2018 when his family transformed his home on King George Crescent, Warrington into an impromptu exhibition space, showcasing around 60 paintings alongside a selection of sketches for the very first time. Over two days, an estimated 1,500 visitors queued around the block to see his art and experience his untouched living room studio, which had been the very source of his artistry.

In 2020, London galleries Alon Zakaim Fine Art and Connaught Brown staged an online exhibition of Tucker’s watercolours, paving the way for a joint physical exhibition in 2021. Titled Eric Tucker: The Secret Painter, this show featured 40 of his oil paintings and watercolours and became the fastest-selling exhibition in both galleries’ histories.

Building on this success, the galleries returned in 2022 with Eric Tucker: At Home, an immersive exhibition that brought the artist’s world to life. Alon Zakaim Fine Art was transformed into a faithful recreation of his front room studio, while Connaught Brown was reimagined as a Northern pub, reflecting the locations that were inextricably linked to his art. To remain authentic to Tucker’s world, the bar did not serve continental lagers or American pale ales, but was well stocked with ‘Tucker’s Palette’, an extra-strong bitter brewed in his honour by Twisted Wheel Brew Company.

Tucker himself could never have foreseen such recognition. On visits to London, he would often wander along Cork Street, admiring the galleries that showcased the artists he revered. He never imagined that his own work would one day hang in those very spaces. However, since his discovery, his paintings have found a place in the art world and continue to resonate with audiences and collectors alike.

Now, Tucker’s art returns to the capital once more. Eric Tucker: Characters and Places, a new selection of never-before-seen works from the Estate, is on view at Alon Zakaim Fine Art and Connaught Brown. The show presents the artist as both an observer and a participant in working-class Warrington. By tracing some real people and places that shaped his vision, the exhibition conveys a vanishing world of red-brick terraces, cobbled alleys, and the remnants of industrial factories (whose gradual decline Tucker seemed largely impervious to), while also offering fresh insight into his creative process. Through the pairing of preparatory works with their finished counterparts, viewers gain a deeply personal understanding of how Tucker perceived, developed, and modulated his surroundings.

Complemented by Joe Tucker’s new book, the exhibition also highlights Tucker’s enduring focus on character. Whether in everyday scenes, pub gatherings or street-corner conversations, his figures are neither straightforward portraits nor caricatures, but composite impressions - characterisations that affirm his place not as an outsider looking in, but as an embedded member of the community. After a lifetime of quiet observation, he now speaks through his paintings to an ever-growing audience, brought together once more through this joint exhibition.