Joe Tucker for The Secret Painter

"A timely reminder that art did not originate as an investment opportunity or a get-rich-quick scheme but as a way for human beings to make sense of their lives (plus make them bearable into the bargain). Miracles happen in the most unlikely places." ~ JARVIS COCKER

Joe Tucker originally trained as an animation director before becoming a television scriptwriter. With his scriptwriting partner, Lloyd Woolf, he has created and written the BBC shows Witless, Click & Collect and Black Ops.

The Secret Painter is his new book; a touching, funny and thoughtful investigation of the nature of expression, the ownership of art and the secret life of those nearest to us. Joe brings us into the extraordinary and compelling world of an extraordinary man. Perhaps more importantly, he also brings Eric Tucker's life's work into ours.

Joe Tucker's Uncle Eric was a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout Joe's life. A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost eighty years, he had an almost compulsive need to charm strangers with working men's club comedy routines, and appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie - and yet had also amassed over five hundred of his own remarkable paintings without anyone ever realising his achievements.

Towards the end of his life, Eric requested an exhibition of his work. As Joe and his family sorted through hundreds of paintings of street scenes, circus and theatre performers, and busy pubs, they began to ask more questions about Eric's life: why had this fanatically sociable man never left his mother's home? Had Eric ever experienced love when he painted it so beautifully? And what had driven him to create so much, yet share it so rarely?

"Joe Tucker is a natural storyteller and The Secret Painter is a brilliant, engrossing read. Tucker discovers and uncovers a rich and fascinating tale hidden in his own family. What he finds, and how he acts upon it, will change their world forever, and his book serves as an important reminder to all of us that the great stories in our lives are often closer to us than we think" ~ LEMN SISSAY