Why was sickert so interested in JtR?

[Lika]

Does anybody know why sickert was so highly interested in JtR?
It seems kinda odd to me.Maybe he tried to find out himself who it was while using him as inspriration for his paintings?

[Brenda]

I think JTR piqued the interest of quite a few people, Sickert included. Let's face it, a man who kills for (apparently) the thrill of killing, and who (apparently) got away with it is interesting stuff. JTR still has the power to intrique us today!

[Mort Belfry]

I think Sickert was like any of us, only he didn't have a forum to get out his enthusiasm and had nothing intelligent to add to a book. He would probably be delighted to know he was on the suspect list.

[The Grave Maurice]

I think you've got your answer, Lika, from the two very astute comments of Brenda and Mort. Sickert was interested in JtR for the same reasons all of us are (whatever those reasons may be) and, from what I have read about him, he would have been thrilled to think that he was on the suspect list, although, like many of us, he probably would have wondered why.

[Lika]

Yeah I understand that but what I mean is his paintings.It wasnt just a hobby of him.These paintings were serious for him not like us who have a high interest in it.In order words I think he might have been kinda obsessed with it.

Oh yeah about that all of us here are so interested in JtR.I lost alot of friends cause they think Im weird for studying the JtR legend.XD

[The Grave Maurice]

Well, you have to realize that Sickert did hundreds of paintings and sketches, and only a few of them have any connection whatever to a murder-related theme. You might ask at your local library if they have, or could get for you, a book entitled Sickert: Paintings and Drawings by Wendy Baron. That will give you a pretty good idea of his output.

I'm sorry to hear that your interest in this subject has cost you some friends. That never happened to me, in fact I've made several friends who share an interest in Victorian history.

[Limehouse]

Yeah I understand that but what I mean is his paintings.It wasnt just a hobby of him.These paintings were serious for him not like us who have a high interest in it.In order words I think he might have been kinda obsessed with it.

Oh yeah about that all of us here are so interested in JtR.I lost alot of friends cause they think Im weird for studying the JtR legend.XD

You might as well ask yourself why Patricia Cornwell writes about murder if she's not actually a murderer herself.

A few of Sickert's paintings dealt with the Ripper murders. Many, many more dealt with other topics. Some of the paintings attributed to be 'about the Ripper' (such as Enuui) were not about the ripper at all. Many well-known people of the time had an interest in the killings (George Brnard Shaw, Dr Thomas Banardo among others) as did many thousands of ordinary people.

[Graham]

I was always under the impression that the only Sickert painting remotely related to JTR was "Jack The Ripper's Bedroom", which Sickert himself said was just a flight of fancy.

Still, I may be wrong....often am.

Cheers,

Graham

[Limehouse]

You are almost certainly correct Graham, and I think that that actual painting was actually re-named Jack the Ripper's bedroom after his landlady told him a tale about its previous occupant (although he may actually have heard a similar story at a dinner party and claimed it to have been told by his landlady). There was another painting named The Camden Town Murder or, alternatively 'What Sall We Do For The Rent?' that Cornwell thought was suspect and that Sickert had painted it because he was the killer of the subject of the painting (a lady killed in her home at Camden Town).

[GordonH]

Sickert rented a flat from a woman who told him as part of the sales pitch that a previous occupant had been JtR.
Thst presumably why he painted that painting.

[Mayerling]

In the first book to mention Sickert and his interest in JTR ("Noble Essences" by Osbert Sitwell), Sickert turned out to be interested in crime stories. He was also always talking about Thomas Castro / Arthur Orton (?) - the notorious Ticheborne Claimant of the 1870s.

Jeff

[Limehouse]

So, really, Sickert's interest in 'celebrated' murder cases was no different to the contributors to this site. If this site had been available at the time of the murders, Sickert, and no doubt a number of other well-known people, would probably have been a regular contributor.

[Tom_Wescott]

Precisely, Ms. District.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Voyeur]

Some artists need muses. The Ripper was a particularly disturbing one.

[Celesta]

Right-o, Julie. Also, JTR's murders were not the only unsolved murders Sickert was interested in. He wanted to know the answers, just like many of us here do.

Best wishes, LH.

Cel