Eric Tucker was born in Warrington in 1932. He left school at 14 and was apprenticed as a sign-writer. Following this, he worked variously as a gravedigger, a building labourer, at a brewery and a timberyard. He also fought as an amateur and, briefly, a professional boxer. Following national service and a year spent working on the construction of the Llanwern steelworks, he returned to his mother and stepfather’s end-of-terrace house in Warrington, where he remained for the rest of his life, working in the delivery yard of a local building firm.

He drew from a young age and took up painting in his 20s. Self-educated in art, he was a frequent visitor to the galleries of nearby Manchester – as well as its pubs, clubs, and illicit drinking dens. It was from here – and the streets and back alleys of his hometown – that he drew his inspiration. His work only came to public attention following his death in 2018. During his life, he made very few attempts to sell or show his paintings; few beyond close family were aware that he painted at all. Even his family were unaware of the scale of his production until the very end of his life – when they discovered hundreds of paintings, and thousands of drawings, in his house.

Courtesy of the artists’s estate.