Walter Sickert: Artist And A Jack the Ripper Suspect
Walter Sickert - Artist
Born in Munich on the 31st of May 1860 - Died in Bath, Somerset on the 22nd of May 1942, aged 81
In 2002, an author published Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, which became an international bestseller.
The author was good at writing bestsellers. Patricia Cornwell has written well over 30 books, and they have sold more than a hundred million copies.
26 of her books centre around a medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta.
It is from the firsthand expertise gained writing these stories in which Patricia Cornwell uses modern forensic science techniques that she is able to say ‘Jack the Ripper — Case Closed’.
She believes that the psychological profile of the Victorian painter Walter Sickert fits that of a killer. She points to his paintings, many of which she says are violently misogynistic.
She says that Sickert was unable to have normal sexual intercourse because of botched surgery to correct a fistula on his penis.
But it was the marriage and distancing of his friend, the painter James Whistler, that lit the fuse. At this point, his anger against women exploded.
It was a bestseller, but not all reviewers were kind. Author and historian Caleb Carr, writing in the New York Times in 2002, said:
“Portrait of a Killer is a sloppy book, insulting to both its target and its audience. The only way for Cornwell to repair its damage will be to stay with this case, as she says she intends to, continuing her research, studies and tests for the years required to complete them thoroughly. Perhaps then she can then do what she claims to have done already - prove Walter Sickert’s guilt decisively. Failing that, she should apologise for this exercise in calumny.”
Patricia Cornwell is made of sturdy stuff. Such brutal reviews did not deter her, and in 2017, she presented what she promised: RIPPER: THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER SICKERT.
The ebook version doesn’t just hit out with a punchy title; it is an all-singing, all-dancing entertainment. The cover has the Ripper in his top hat and opera cape—an opera cape that moves in the breeze.
RIPPER: THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER SICKERT by Patricia Cornwell
“This book features art and animation specifically designed to enhance this story. You can control your experience on compatible devices by using the Show Media option in the Aa menu.”
We’ve come a long way since 1888 when Walter Sickert was 28. As Cornwell writes, “Sickert had given up theatre for art and was a student of the American master James MacNeill Whistler.”
Sadly, Walter couldn’t make a living, and says Cornwell, " His wife supported him as women always would. He was known for his striking good looks.”
Cornwell says she found a photo taken when he was twenty.
“Chiselled face with a perfectly angled nose and jaw, and thick wavy hair. He was blond with penetrating blue eyes, his features flawless and sensual except for his mouth. People who knew him described it as cruel.”
Walter Sickert is described as a chameleon, able to transform his appearance just as Cornwell says Jack the Ripper was able to do. He could change his handwriting just as in the letters that were sent to the press and the police. Letters that claimed to be from the killer.
There is no evidence that he kept a diary and didn’t date his letters, paintings or drawings. Cornwell says he left almost no trail, which she believes was no accident.
However, he did date some scraps of sketches in early August 1888, and Cornwell says that they show that he was in London in August 1888. This trumps the evidence put forward that claims he was in France when some of the murders took place.
However, just because the dated sketch is of a London landmark, it doesn’t mean that Sickert sketched while still in London. An author who is an authority on Sickert, Wendy Baron, says that one of the difficulties with Sickert's chronology is that a picture of a place was sometimes done after he left it.
Therefore, the dates on the scraps of sketches don’t prove where he was.
In discussing the murder of Martha Tabram on August the 7th, Patricia says that it may well have been committed by the soldier that Police Constable Barrett claimed he saw at 2:00 am close to where Martha Tabram was murdered.
Then Cornwell adds that “maybe her killer was disguised as a soldier. What a brilliant bit of trickery that would have been.”
Well, I suppose anything is possible. As she says, “Walter Sickert was familiar with uniforms.”
I don’t think Caleb Carr would be won over. I couldn’t find a review of Patricia’s new book by Caleb, but USA Today had a review by Matt McCarthy, an internist.
I had to look that one up. He’s a doctor who specialises in internal medicine. Yes, I should have guessed. I have to say he is no kinder than Caleb.
He says:
‘“Today,” she writes of Walter Sickert, ‘“He would be diagnosed a psychopath, a narcissist.”
Matt tells his readers, “I’m a physician, this is false’”
Then he continues:
“She then suggests Sickert had a hole in his penis and possibly had corrective surgical procedures as a child that traumatised him; somehow, she believes, that experience, which she presents little persuasive evidence of actually occurring, transformed him into a mass murderer.”
The doctor ends by saying:
“Ripper is a fundamentally dishonest book, one that uses medical jargon and mitochondrial DNA analysis to confuse the audience and obscure the fact that its conclusions are flawed. Cornwell assumes her readers are fools, unable to properly evaluate scientific evidence. We’re not. Walter Sickert deserves better. So do we.”
Of course, some might note that both these reviewers are men, and they are critiquing a woman who was writing about male misogyny.
There is a woman who has made some brief comments on the book. Her name is Jean Overton Fuller, author, and an agent in the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.
Jean Overton Fuller also had an interest in Walter Sickert.
Sickert And The Ripper Crimes by Jane Overton Fuller
Twelve years before Patricia Cornwell first published Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, Jean Overton Fuller published Sickert And The Ripper Crimes in 1990.
Jean Overton Fuller became curious about Walter Sickert and his connection to Jack the Ripper when she and her mother, Violet Overton Fuller, were discussing the painter Florence Pash.
Florence Pash, when in her late eighties, told Violet Overton Fuller that Sickert knew who Jack the Ripper was, and he painted clues into some of his pictures.
She claimed the murders were linked to an illegitimate child of a member of the royal family. An illegitimate child who, as an adult, had an affair with Walter Sickert, thus producing another illegitimate child. An illegitimate child christened Joseph Gorman but who called himself Joseph Sickert
Joe Gorman Sickert of course was the source for information used in the 1973 BBC drama documentary about the Ripper crimes and in Stephen Knight’s book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution.
Both Jane Overton Fuller’s book Sickert and The Ripper Crimes and Stephen Knight’s Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution would certainly have appeared in any search by somebody setting out to discover something about the Jack the Ripper case.
However, they are not mentioned in Patricia Cornwell’s 2002 book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper —Case Closed or in her 2017 book RIPPER: THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER SICKERT.
Cornwell says she knew nothing about the Jack the Ripper case, and it was only when she was shown around Scotland Yard’s black museum that she decided to warm up this cold case. Eighteen months later, she published Portrait of a Killer: Case — Closed.
That seems quite a short period for a researcher who has not given any thought to a subject before starting a search for facts and background and then organizing, editing, and proofreading a manuscript, not to mention having it proofread, published, and shipped into bookshops.
There are more than a hundred candidates for the title of Jack the Ripper, with varying amounts of support. Like Stephen Knight and Jane Overton Fuller, Patricia Cornwell went for Walter Sickert.
Patricia Cornwell says the trigger for her was a visit to Scotland Yard’s black museum.
As mentioned, the other woman who went for Sickert was author, poet and painter Jane Overton Fuller.
Her trigger was not Scotland Yard’s black museum but a particular moment when her mother told her that, according to Florence Pash, Sickert knew who Jack the Ripper was.
It took Fuller a lot longer to fire up her engine. The conversation with her mother took place in 1948 — 60 years after the murders and 42 years before she published Sickert And The Ripper Crimes in 1990 — but her approach was the same.
Find the evidence that supports Florence Pash’s claim that Walter Sickert knew who the killer was.
In the edition published in 2011, she adds a chapter on what Patricia Cornwell writes about Walter Sickert.
“Ms. Cornwell had told the press she had spent six million dollars on her research, which included the purchase of over thirty original paintings by Sickert.”
This was to establish a link with some of the letters that the police received at the time. As Fuller points out, there is no proof that the killer wrote any of the letters.
And experts argue that mitochondrial DNA can only be used to rule someone out of a crime.
It cannot rule them in because many people will share any mitochondrial DNA.
Fuller also writes: “She said Sickert had only a small penis (perhaps interesting if true, how did she know?).”
And then she goes on to dispute Cornwell’s claim that he was childless.
“Sickert, so far from being incapable of begetting, in fact begat two sons, one in Dieppe, at the turn of the century, and one much later, in London, and he was proud of them, as evinced in his depicting them.”
The son he begat in London was, of course, Joe Gorman.
Unfortunately, we have no real evidence that Walter Sickert did, in fact, begat Joe Gorman/Sickert.
The only evidence comes from Joe Gorman himself and from what it is claimed Florence Pash told Jane Overton Fuller’s mother, who then told Jane. The claim that Joe’s mother had a fling with the 65-year-old Walter Sickert. A fling that resulted in the birth of Joe Gorman.
In 1990, when Jane Overton’s book Sickert And The Ripper Crimes was published, the highly regarded website dedicated to analysing everything around the Jack the Ripper case, casebook.org, awarded the book one star and two sentences:
“Suggests Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, but the book provides shockingly little evidence to back this up. Not recommended.”
Patricia Cornwell received similar judgements in New York Times reviews and USA Today.
Paul Begg and Philip Sugden are just two of the writers who have studied the Jack the Ripper case, and they contradict Cornwell’s statement that: “Today he would be diagnosed a psychopath . . .”
“The psychological profile of a psychopath would suggest that Jack the Ripper would have had:
A domineering mother and a weak or absent father.— In fact Sickert had a loving relationship with both parents.
Developed destructive emotions in younger years, lighting fires, mutilating animals. — No such tendencies were noted in Sickert.
An asocial loner. — Sickert had many friends.
Hatred for women.— Sickert had many female lovers and friends.
An occupation that allowed him to experience his violent fantasies: butcher, morgue attendant. — Sickert was an artist.
The profile indicates that Jack the Ripper lived in Whitechapel. — Sickert lived in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead.
Patricia Cornwell says that Sickert’s paintings are violently misogynistic; however, reactions to art are highly subjective. We often see what we expect to see or even want to see in a piece of art.”
Despite what is written in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, Sickert and The Ripper Crimes, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed and RIPPER: THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER SICKERT, there is no evidence that Walter Sickert had any active involvement the Jack the Ripper murders.
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