iRoyal Academy of Arts · Piccadilly
Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam
התערוכה הסתיימה.
The first major survey in over 50 years of the Victorian painter, who created intricate fairy worlds, including The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, from within an asylum.
אתר המוזיאוןעוד בלונדון
In The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, a woodsman raises his axe over a hazelnut that will become Queen Mab's new carriage, and you watch through the grass, as if crouched in the undergrowth. Dadd painted it over nine years inside Bethlem, the hospital he was sent to after killing his father in 1843.
More than 100 works hang in order upstairs in the Sackler Wing: student oils, sketches from his Mediterranean trip, portraits of his doctors, then late watercolours from Broadmoor. The RA flags historical imagery around mental health and racism, including a caricature in The Flight Out of Egypt that the curators acknowledge.
Most critics gave it four stars, the Standard five. Ben Luke in The Nerve found the fairy whimsy "close to unbearable" and the last two sections a whimper. The Arts Desk suggests bringing a magnifying glass, as Dadd once handed them out. Tickets are £15, under-16s go free with a paying adult, and it's open until 9pm Fridays and Saturdays. It closes 25 October.
לא לפספס
The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke
Look past the axe for princes, peasants, a ploughman and an admiral watching from the daisies, while a green dragonfly blows a trumpet.
Titania Sleeping
The fairy queen sleeps under a bower of horn-blowing imps, framed by a painted border of golden bats, with bubbles forming her tiara.
Contradiction. Oberon and Titania
On this oval canvas, look beneath the lily-of-the-valley bells for a tiny orgy of dancing and feasting, and battles among the anemones.
Puck
A naked, grinning Puck sits on a pedestal above a ring of tiny dancers, with a dewdrop-fringed flower hanging over him like a lampshade.
Bacchanalian Scene
A horned satyr drinks from a golden chalice while a nymph watches, all three with fruit, nuts and wheat woven into their hair.
מתאים ל
- ביקורי ערב
- לבד
- צלילה לעומק
לוותר אם
You can't stand Victorian fairy whimsy: the fairy paintings are the show's main event.
עם ילדים
Under-16s go free with a fee-paying adult. The RA warns that some works include historical language and imagery related to mental health and racism.
Royal Academy of Arts: עוד תערוכות
עכשיו בסביבה
בסביבה
קרדיט לתמונות
8
- Royal Academy of ArtsYair Haklai / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- RootsCourtesy of The Photographers' Gallery
- Sanlé Sory: שנות הצבע (Sanlé Sory: Colour Years)© Sanlé Sory, 2026. Courtesy of Tezeta.
- Snap Happy! איך ילדים הפכו לצלמים (Snap Happy! How Children Became Photographers)Courtesy of The Photographers' Gallery
- The Photographers' GalleryThe wub / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- National GalleryCarlos Delgado / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Portrait GalleryIstvánka / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Churchill War RoomsJenny Poole / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0