Richard Dadd
A reflection on the exhibition ‘Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam’ curated by Nicholas Tromans at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 25th July-26th October 2026.
RICHARD DADD was admitted to Bethlem Hospital at Lambeth on the 22nd August 1844, after killing his father, Robert, with a knife in Cobham Park. He spent the remaining forty one years of his life in the insane asylum, first at Bethlem, or Bedlam, in Lambeth, and then at Broadmoor, the newly-built asylum in Berkshire, near the village of Crowthorne.
go tell the great god Osiris I have done the deed to set him free
