Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam

© Royal Academy

Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam

25 July 202625 October 2026

Coming Soon

Dadd spent 42 years as a patient in Bethlem and Broadmoor, producing paintings of extraordinary obsessive detail and invented worlds — work that inspired Cornelia Parker, Angela Carter and Queen, whose song The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke takes its title directly from one of his paintings.

From Royal Academy

Victorian artist Richard Dadd constructed fairytale worlds and highly original works of art. His creativity never ceased – rather, it flourished from within the confines of Bethlem and Broadmoor. As a talented young artist, Dadd studied at the Royal Academy and travelled through Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt in search of picturesque subjects. Soon after, he started to experience psychosis and went on to spend 42 years as a patient in Bethlem and later Broadmoor Hospitals....

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