The troubled artist who found solace in fairies - then murdered his father

Dadd was fascinated by costumes and Orientalist themes, as well as fairies (Titania Sleeping, 1841) - Royal Academy of Arts More than half a century has elapsed since the last big exhibition of work by Richard Dadd, the Victorian one-off who murdered his father while in his 20s and spent the rest of his life painting in psychiatric institutions. The most famous of his seemingly psychedelic compositions is The Fairy-Feller's Master-Stroke (1855-64), an airless, intricate and profoundly eccentric picture swarming with supernatural creatures, each apparently no bigger than a blade of grass. Surely it's the product of a fevered brain?