There’s a story Eric Tucker liked to tell about meeting L. S. Lowry in a Manchester art gallery, when the artist famous for depicting the industrial North told him: "I’ve never worked, you know."
What Eric never told Lowry, or most of the people he entertained with the anecdote, was that he was also an artist, but as a working class labourer he had been shunned by the elite art world.
It was only last summer, when Eric, of Warrington, Cheshire, knew he was dying at the age of 86, that he revealed more than 400 works stashed in his home and the ramshackle air raid shelter in the garden, and asked his brother to help him get them exhibited.
Eric died before he could see his dream come true, but his family were so determined to fulfil his last wish, they put on an exhibition right there in his home, drawing unexpected 2,000-strong crowds, and attracting interest from Warrington’s art gallery, which has now opened a retrospective of Eric’s work.
Interest is now so high, critics predict Eric’s best paintings could sell for “hundreds of thousands” each, an unimaginable sum for a man who started out as a £3-a-week labourer, endured periods on the dole, and never even opened a bank account.
What’s more, some even rate him up there with his hero Lowry himself.
Eric’s nephew Joe Tucker, 37, says: “Lowry’s boast that he never worked actually just separated him from his subject matter – but my uncle was one of the people he painted.
“My uncle, of course, never had such a luxury, working tough manual jobs all his life for little pay. But the irony I think, is that this is precisely his raison d’etre.”
Art critic Ruth Millington agrees. She says: “Lowry was middle-class, but Eric brings us up close and personal with his people. I would rate him up there with Lowry, but he is not copying him, he has developed his own distinctive style. I think some of his best paintings could reach hundreds of thousands.”
Eric was a quiet man with a broad Warrington accent who, after leaving school at 14, worked as a steelworker, gravedigger and building site labourer and lived in a former council house, an end of terrace, in Warrington.
He was the type of working class grafter Lowry depicted in his art, but Eric was also a self-taught artist and a knowledgeable art lover.
Not even his family, or his friends from the local boxing gym, pubs and working men’s clubs that he loved, and depicted, knew about his ambition, or the scale of his talent. Tragically, Eric, who never wed, died a retired labourer rather than an esteemed artist.
Nephew Joe says: “I remember Eric being hard up, picking me up from school in a very old car with a smashed window held together with Sellotape – he called it the stained glass window.
“Where he was coming from in life, the idea of getting into the art world was overwhelming.
“But he really did dream of being an artist, having his work seen.”
No one is more surprised, or pleased for his pal than Alan Crompton, 87, who first met Eric when they were teenagers using a boxing gym. Eric boxed professionally to supplement his income. Alan says: “I fought him in my very first fight – he won on points.”
He and Eric met three times a week for a pint with a group of mates throughout their lives.
When lorry driver Alan was between jobs, kind Eric leant him money to tide him over. Alan says: “You would never meet a nicer bloke. He talked very little, like, but he enjoyed a drink and had a dry sense of humour.
“And he’d help anyone in trouble, although he didn’t have a lot himself.”
Alan knew little about Eric’s art. He says: “He used to sketch boxers and show me. Once he did a painting for my wife for her birthday – I think I just paid him for the paint. But I had no idea what he was producing.”
His brother Tony, 78, recalls how Eric painted as a hobby, starting with “a cheap box of watercolours”.
Their father was killed in the Second World War, in 1942 at El Alamein in North Africa, when Eric was around 10. Their mum had to “skivvy”, and later work in a factory.
Eric left school at 14 to find work. Tony says: “He had to assume responsibility. It was a struggle at home. For Eric, working as an artist was not an attainable idea.”
Eric continued living with his mum, and, after she died, lived alone. Eric did occasionally enlist Tony’s help to try to show his paintings. He entered the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, but was rejected.
A Manchester gallery took a couple of works, and a dealer sold two – but appalled Eric with the cut he took!
Eric was disappointed, but never bitter. Tony says: “He liked the life he had. Sometimes it was difficult, getting work. But he got on with it. And he enjoyed life in the pubs and bars.”
Tony thinks Eric would have quietly enjoyed the attention his work is finally getting. But he says: “Even if he had found success, I don’t think he would have changed his lifestyle.
“He was happy with the people he knew. He wouldn’t have gone for the high life – although he did like a gamble on the horses!”
- Eric Tucker: The Unseen Artist is at the Warrington Museum and Art Gallery until February 23.
