This season we’re learning that true crime and art history are two genres that have smashed together with some fascinating results. Today’s show: a revisiting of our popular two-parter from season 1. Was British painter Walter Sickert actually Jack the Ripper? (Part Two)

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Episode Credits

Production and Editing by Kaboonki. Additional editing by Hannah Roberts. Theme music by Alex Davis.  Social media assistance by Emily Crockett and Caroline Haller.

ArtCurious is sponsored by Anchorlight, an interdisciplinary creative space, founded with the intent of fostering artists, designers, and craftspeople at varying stages of their development. Home to artist studios, residency opportunities, and exhibition space Anchorlight encourages mentorship and the cross-pollination of skills among creatives in the Triangle.

Additional music credits

"Interception" by Kai Engel is licensed under BY-NC 4.0; "The Fifth Life" by Circus Marcus is licensed under BY-NC 3.0; "Thunderstorm (Pon VIII)" by Kai Engel is licensed under BY-NC 4.0; "E den Kaput" by Circus Marcus is licensed under BY-NC 3.0; "Chalet" by Meydän is licensed under BY 4.0. Ads: "Waltz for a Memory" by Mela is licensed under BY-SA 4.0 (Thrive Causemetics)

Recommended Reading

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Links and further resources

BBC History of Jack the Ripper

How Jack the Ripper Worked

FBI Case File on Jack the Ripper

http://www.jack-the-ripper.org/

Episode Transcript

Just a quick note that today’s episode contains details of a violent and graphic nature. The crimes are over a century old, but the information is still horrifying. Please take special care-- and you have been warned.

During my first year of graduate school, I spent hours upon hours each day, shuffling from classrooms to the library, checking out huge stacks of books In preparation for one of the four or five research papers required for my courses. You'd think that after being surrounded by books and reading, reading, reading all day that I'd need a real change of pace to blow off steam. And you'd be right- so I did my fair share of attending football games, bingeing on reality tv and frequenting the campus pub. But if I am really being honest, my favorite place to go wasn't to a bar or a club- it was the bookstore.  I loved getting lost in the aisles, perusing anything and everything, and usually spending too much money to add to my already-overflowing bookshelves. 

I remember one particular day when I was browsing a new releases table and a particular book caught my eye. What I noticed first was the dust jacket- its background was an old, handwritten letter, across which a huge font,  in bright red letters, the color of blood, trumpeted the author’s name- Patricia Cornwell-across the cover. It seemed like yet another crime novel, one among hundreds. I had never read a Cornwell book, but I wasn't sure that they were my taste. And so, I moved on, until I saw the subtitle of the book: Jack the Ripper: Case Closed. Now, I am as intrigued by unsolved crimes as much as the next person, so I cracked the  cover of the book and began to read the dust jacket’s accompanying description. In it, the author released a bombshell statement:  she had purportedly solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper’s identity, which had evaded researchers, historians, and police for over one hundred years. And to those of us in the art world, her suspected killer hit a bit too close to home. A painter-- and a well-known and much praised one, at that-- had committed the famous murders, she wrote. Jack the Ripper, she said, was  Walter Sickert.

Some people think that visual art is dry, boring, lifeless. But the stories behind those paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs are weirder, crazier, or more fun than you can imagine. In season six, we are uncovering the dastardly deeds of several of art history’s famed artists, including their involvement--or participation--in murder most foul. Today’s topic-- it’s the updated second half of our popular season one series: Was British painter Walter Sickert really Jack the Ripper? This is the ArtCurious Podcast, exploring the unexpected, the slightly odd, and the strangely wonderful in Art History. I'm Jennifer Dasal.

If you’re just tuning in to the ArtCurious Podcast for the first time, please stop and listen to part one of this episode first and get the backstory on Jack the Ripper’s crimes, as well as a brief biography of Walter Sickert. The rest of this episode will make a lot more sense that way. Now, let’s get right to Patricia Cornwell and her jarring 2002 book’s theory. 

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper: Case Closed details the backstory behind Sickert’s life and the Ripper Crimes in hundreds of pages. Cornwell's theory hinges on a variety of potential evidence and concepts, many taken from modern-day psychological studies on serial killers as well as modern forensic practices. Since 2002, Cornwell has published two more tomes on the Sickert/Ripper connection-- she released Chasing the Ripper--an Amazon Kindle e-single--in 2014, and followed it up with a “reboot” of Portrait of a Killer in 2017, now renamed as Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert.

Let's address Cornwell’s theories about how Walter Sickert’s psychological profile fits into our contemporary concept of a psychopath. Cornwell writes that an examination of Sickert’s works- paintings, as well as drawings, etchings, and even sketches on letters and other ephemera-- show signs of a deeply misogynistic mindset with a bent towards violence. So determined is she  that Sickert’s work subtly reveals a murderous inclination that, in order to prove this, Cornwell herself has become one of the biggest collectors of Walter Sickert’s works of art. Interestingly, she has identified a few works as being eerily similar to the surviving crime scene photos of several of the Ripper victims. Sickert’s fleshy nudes are frequently dappled with shadow and are experiments in light and dark, just as many Impressionist and Post-Impressionist had done in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cornwell, however, has a different opinion, noting that, to her eyes, Sickert's works are not mere experimentations in light and dark, but that they are remembered scenes from Jack the Ripper himself, and that Sickert is revealing his crimes through his artistic subjects, who appear to have been, quote, “slashed by the paint and brushstrokes.” Unquote. The immediate comparison is to the facial mutilation, for example,  of Catherine Eddowes or of Mary Kelly, both known today through photographs taken of their corpses. Facial mutilation in a victim can mean a number of things- but, according to Cornwell, it frequently points to an intense hatred of the person being attacked. So is Sickert taking his anger and hatred out on someone-- perhaps a Ripper victim-- on canvas?

Cornwell’s dissection of one of Sickert’s most famous--or dare I say infamous-- series of works certainly seems to play along with her theory of painterly mutilation. And this series has the benefit of a rather scandalous title to help things along: the Camden Town Murder series. This is a series of paintings completed by Sickert around 1908 that supposedly deal with a murder committed on September 11, 1907, in --surprise, surprise-- a district of northwest London known as Camden Town. That night, a sex worker named Emily Dimmock was murdered in her home, killed by a deep slit to the throat. Like the Ripper deaths nearly two decades prior, the Camden Town murder caused a sensation in the press. Sickert of course was aware of the crime and with the furor surrounding it, not only from the press, but because the art world was obsessed with the crime, too, because the man arrested for the crime was an art dealer named Robert Wood. Fascinated, Sickert completed multiple paintings connected to the idea.  Some reports count only four canvases as true Camden Town Murder images, while other historians claim upwards of 20. In one of the most famous, a work simply titled The Camden Town Murder and subtitled, What Shall We Do To Pay the Rent?, Sickert has painted a fleshy nude woman, lying on an unmade  bed, her behatted head turned away from the viewer. Next to her sits a man with clasped hands, and hunched shoulders, his head hanging down. We can see neither of their faces, and there is no way to tell whether the woman is alive or dead, though it’s not looking good for the poor thing. Patricia Cornwell states that there are uncanny similarities between this canvas and the photograph of the corpse of Catherine Eddowes, who was pictured prone on her back with her mutilated face turned away and slightly to the right of the camera. In the Camden Town Murder, the woman’s turned face, Cornwell argues, is turned away in such a convenient manner as to hide the fact that there was something horribly and unnaturally wrong with it. And the combination of despondent man and a prone and vulnerable nude woman is unnerving to say the least. 

To be fair, Walter Sickert was known to have been smart in his abilities to use sensationalism to his best advantage, so it has been theorized that he completed the Camden Town Series in order to shock  people into paying closer attention to his work. Indeed, he even produced a dark, brushy, and rather indistinct painting titled, aptly enough, Jack the Ripper’s  Bedroom, that could be seen as a grabby attempt at infamy. But to Cornwell, these paintings are little hints that point to Sickert’s culpability. To her, the similarities between the victim photographs and to Sickert’s works are so strong that she wonders if anyone but the murderer himself could have depicted such scenes. And, of course, Sickert was based in London, so while Patricia Cornwell could not pinpoint Sickert’s exact location during the night of each and every rime, she notes that there was no reason to assume that he wasn't in London, and therefore available and able to kill at will. 

And then, there are more personal details that convince Cornwell of Sickert’s hatred of women. Sickert was childless, she says, and was impotent, probably due to a botched surgery performed to correct what Cornwell identifies as a quote “fistula of the penis.” Probably this would have led to disappointment not only in Sickert himself, but in his potential lovers as well, women who may have also derided and ridiculed him for his condition. His frustration and rage at not being able to perform sexually and at women as a whole, then, led him to seek other means of escape and gratification- murder. This is where Cornwell’s knowledge of current-day psychology and analysis of serial killers comes in hand, because the link between murder and sexual dysfunction is frequently noted in such high profile crimes. 

And finally, there is DNA evidence. Yes! DNA evidence, Cornwell, says, that she was able to gather from forensic analyses that she herself commissioned. An investigative team performed DNA testing on the backs of envelopes and stamps on both Walter Sickert’s personal correspondence, as well as a number of the Ripper letters that were sent to the police and the newspapers in 1888, and in the years that followed. One particular test- a mitochondrial DNA test, or mtDNA test,  came back showing quote “similar sequences” in both sets of evidence. Not only that, but a comparison of the watermarks on the stationary used by Sickert matches up with those found in a few of the Ripper letters as well. Three watermarks, in fact, indicate three different types or brands of paper known to have been owned and used by Sickert, as well as having been used to create several ripper letters. One of these stationary sets, she argues in her latest book, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert, was only available in one set of 24 sheets. No more of this particular letterhead, she says, was made. What’s more, somee ripper letters contain drawings or doodles-- and who’s most likely to draw or doodle? An artist, naturally. 

What are the chances, Cornwell leads us to ask, that there would be DNA similarities, doodles and drawings, and stationary matches between these two disparate sets of letters, with one written by a man whose artworks hint at a intense fascination the dark side of society and a possible deep-seated resentment towards the fairer sex? Cornwell was convinced, and as she says to interviewers, quote, “This is so serious to me that I am staking my reputation on this. Because if someone literally proves me wrong, not only will I feel horrible about it, but I will look terrible.”

You can imagine that the response to this theory was swift and strong.  Almost immediately after the publication of Cornwell’s first Ripper book, the media ran with the story, as the media is wont to do, and art historians, Ripperologists, and scientists came out of the woodwork to refute Patricia Cornwell’s claims. The art world in general was irate. Even one of the art dealers known to have sold Cornwell a number of Sickert paintings, a man called Andrew Patrick, was noted to have said that the author had quote “gone beyond the pale” in attempting to prove her point. He continued, quote, “Everyone knows that this stuff about Sickert is nonsense. He loved these dramatic titles, and to play with the idea of menace.” Even more infuriating was a rumor that Cornwell had insisted upon destroying one of Sickert’s paintings in order to seek further evidence for her claims- ripping apart a canvas like Jack ripped open his victims. This claim, Cornwell states, is patently false. But even if she didn’t destroy one of Sickert’s works, some still think she’s made a mistake. Curator Richard Shone, who produced a well-received exhibition of Sickert’s works at the Royal Academy of London in 1992, was interviewed by U.K. newspaper The Guardian, saying, quote, “I can't believe she has done this, it's such a red herring. It all sounds monstrously stupid to me.” 

So, people were angry that Walter Sickert became associated with one of the most notorious murders of all time. But how do things stack up when you level-headedly connect Patricia Cornwell’s theories up against the potential evidence? That’s coming up next, right after this break. 

Welcome back to ArtCurious.

Once the furor died down, several authors produced thoughtful pieces that detailed how Cornwell’s claims may not really stack up against the surviving Ripper evidence. A substantive and thorough report by author Steven P. Ryder was posted on the Jack the Ripper Casebook website-- one of the top places for Ripperologists to dissect evidence and converse about suspects. In his report, Ryder notes that he doesn't necessarily attempt to refute Patricia Cornwell’s claims, but to present a guide to the quote-unquote factual evidence of the case for those who have read Cornwell’s books so that people can come to their own conclusions. 

Steven Ryder tallies the main concepts presented in Portrait of a Killer and pairs them up, one by one, with the facts of the case to the best of his knowledge. First, there's the artistic interpretation, or the noted similarities between Sickert’s paintings and the known photographs of Ripper victims, particularly Mary Kelly and Catherine Eddowes. We can concede that Sickert was fascinated with true crime, murder, and mystery. Heck, the Camden Town paintings alone attest to this. Those themes just came with the territory for the subject matter that he chose to portray. As curator Richard Shone noted, quote “Sickert was interested in the music hall, the theatrical and low life, and he played around with those themes like Degas, his mentor.” As we have discussed in the past on the ArtCurious Podcast, especially in our episode about the rivalry between Manet and Degas, many usually think of ethereal ballerinas in wispy tutus when Degas comes up in conversation, but Degas also tackled heavier subject matter in his works, including possibly domestic violence, sex work, and rape.  And in the world of theater and dance in the 19th century, those things were, sadly, often associated. A chunk of works created by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists highlight the darker side of life, spurred on by many of the same problems endemic in London and elsewhere-- overcrowding, urbanization, industrialization, disconnection, disease. Artists portrayed violence, alcoholism, death… The list goes on. Sickert was not alone in this fascination. He probably wasn’t even rare in his fascination.  And let's not forget one of the biggest points about art interpretation, and art appreciation, really- it is hugely subjective. What I like, you might not like- and what I see in a drawing, you might not see. And our stubborn human natures will also assure that we will continue to see whatever it is that we want to see. So with that in mind, many out there choose to interpret Sickert’s paintings as clues to his secret identity.

Steven Ryder does concede a couple of other points about Walter Sickert’s work. First, he states that there may be evidence that Sickert based one of his etchings on a photograph of one of the Ripper murders, but the evidence is shaky at best and has not been confirmed. Sickert did often use photographs as the basis of his works, like many others at the time. But there are two things to note here- first, the crime scene photo of the gory Mary Kelly corpse, as well as the images of Catherine Eddowes after her death, were not published in newspapers until 1899, and were published first in France- eleven years after the crimes of 1888. Sickert did travel to France frequently, and surely these photos would have caused enough of a sensation that it is entirely possible that he would have seen them, and could have based later works on them. But does that make him a murderer? Was he, years after the fact, bragging about his unspeakable deeds, or possibly dealing with any lingering guilt and attempting to exorcise his demons in pigment? Or was he just an artist potentially using a sensational image or images as a starting point for a continued study of themes that were always of interest to him? 

There is also the two-pronged possibility that any resemblance to the ripper murder scenes is subjective to the viewers who choose to read works of art in that way, and that any resemblance, as they say at the end of the movies, is purely coincidental.

Next, there’s Sickert’s reported impotence and supposed sexual inabilities that fueled his hatred of womankind. Well, it turns out that the whole claim about Sickert’s fistula only stems from one person-  a man named John Lessore, who was Sickert's nephew by marriage. And Lessore stated that it was only family hearsay that promoted the sensitive location of the fistula and that no documentary evidence exists to confirm that it affected his sexual life in any way, including but not limited to his supposed impotence. And this connects to the next claim about Sickert’s childlessness. That's probably bunk. There have been multiple rumors, both during Sickert's lifetime and after, about illegitimate children that he sired, and Ryder quotes Sickert's close friend, the painter Jacques-Emile Blanche, as saying, quote, “Sickert was immoral, with a swarm of children of provenance which are not possible to count.” On top of all that, Sickert was a known philanderer, who had multiple mistresses during his marriage to his first wife, and his wife even identified him as an adulterer as a reason for the dissolution of their marriage. So chances are high that Walter Sickert’s plumbing worked just fine, and evidence exists that shows that Sickert was enjoying himself in this matter while he was away on his frequent trips to France, where he was known to have kept a mistress. And while Cornwell claims that no evidence exists showing that Sickert was in London during the deadly fall of 1888, Ryder states that there are, in fact, multiple independent sources that state that he was in France. There is one letter in existence that Sickert wrote in France during the fall of 1888, though Cornwell is quick to note that it doesn't have a postmark, so it is impossible to date precisely. But Sickert biographers also point to over letters from Sickert's family and friends, even Jacques-Emile Blanche, confirming Walter’s presence in France. Blanche writes of visiting Sickert in France in September. Sickert's mother wrote a letter from France In the same month, noting that her two sons, Walter and Bernhard, were having a lovely holiday filled with swimming and painting. And even Sickert's own wife, Ellen, corresponded with her brother in law during that fall, noting that her husband had been abroad for a number of weeks. Evidence also exists connecting Sickert with a second location in France later that fall in October, where he visited his mistress, who lived in Dieppe. All told, though any number of excuses may be given to claim Sickert’s presence in London, chances are probably good that he was in France during the same time as the first four ripper murders- absent for all, perhaps, except for the final death of Mary Kelly in November. 

But what about that damning DNA evidence that reportedly connects Sickert to the Jack the Ripper letters? Well, this is where things get interesting, and pretty technical, too. It turns out that multiple DNA tests were completed by Patricia Cornwell’s scientific team. The first test was what is known as a nuclear DNA test, and this is the type with which you are probably familiar- this is the usual type of DNA testing, used in the past few decades to trace historical lineages and to prove the identities of baby daddies and potential killers alike. That test came back negative-- no connections could be established between the Ripper evidence and Sickert’s own correspondence. So that's when the team moved on to the mtDNA test. Let me attempt to explain the difference-- but do keep in mind that an art historian is sharing this information, so forgive me any errors. Though mtDNA tests are used the world over and are as trusted as their nuclear counterparts, there is an important factor which separates the mitochondrial version from the nuclear one- and that is that mitochondrial DNA is not unique. Whereas nuclear DNA will uniquely match a person to the evidence, mitochondrial DNA cannot-- but what it can do is limit the results to a certain segment of the population. Steven Ryder compares it to blood typing. For example, he says, two different, unrelated people living on two continents half a world apart can both have A positive blood types. If you're looking, then, for someone in the world with an A positive blood type, you're able to remove billions of possible suspects from your list-- so, goodbye, O negative!-- but you're still left with billions of Type A folks. Similarly, with the mtDNA results, experts estimate that between 1 to 10 percent of the population would have similar strains of mitochondrial DNA. If we apply this the most generous estimate, the 1 percent estimate, to a population census for the city of London at the turn of the 20th century, it yields the following result: the London population totaled about 40 million in 1900, and just one percent of that chunk is four hundred thousand people. Four hundred thousand! Having Walter Sickert in that list certainly doesn't mean that he isn't Jack the Ripper, but it doesn't necessarily meant he is, either, and what remains are hundreds of thousands of people who would still might fit the bill. 

And then there's the issue with even performing DNA testing in the first place. The surviving Jack the Ripper letters, as well as Sickert's own correspondence, aren't a few days old. They are over one hundred years old, and have been handled by dozens, if not hundreds, of people over the years- archivists, policemen, investigators, journalists, family members, and so forth. As Ryder notes, the problem of DNA transferral from any number of individuals, who most certainly weren't wearing the requisite white gloves-- is a very serious consideration. This is even something that Cornwell discusses in her book, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert. In fact, she says that her team probably should have never done the DNA tests in the first place because of this point alone. 

There's also the question of whether or not Sickert, let alone the Ripper, actually licked the stamps and the backs of the envelopes containing his letters. This point may seem silly, but the Victorians were pretty scared of germs and bacteria in general, so it was common habit to use a moistened sponge to wet and seal correspondence. And Sickert and/or the Ripper might not even have mailed their own letters or even stamped them, but could have handed them off to a maid, assistant, friend, or even a family member to post them. Again, the chance of DNA contamination of these letters is fairly high.

Which brings us to the Ripper documents themselves. According to historians and Ripperologists, there is an estimated 600 surviving letters which were claimed to have been sent from Jack the Ripper or from those claiming leads or information about the crimes. Some of them were sent during that fateful fall of 1888, but many of them continued to be sent years later, with the last letters arriving in the mid-1960s. The vast majority of these letters are considered to be hoaxes. They were sent from all over the world- though the majority were mailed in London, some came from the United States, from France, Australia, and even as far afield as South Africa and beyond. And of course the grammar, spelling, penmanship and so on are vastly different, too, with contradictory suggestions and so-called proof found between them.  In the U.K. alone, Ryder points out that mailing in fake Ripper letters became something of a quote “sick national pastime” in the years that followed the murders, and even some morally-reprehensible journalists were suspected of getting in on the action of Ripper hoaxing in order to sell more papers. Two women were even arrested for forging Ripper letters. The only letter that most experts consider to be a possibly authentic Ripper letter is the one we read in our last episode- the so-called “From Hell” letter, accompanied by the segment of a human kidney assumed to have come from Catherine Eddowes. But even this note has never been able to be completely confirmed, and that, too, could be a hoax or a prank. All of this is to say that between the hundreds of letters that exist as possible proof of Jack the Ripper himself, it shouldn't be surprising that similarities in phrases, watermarks, and stationary would pop up, and none of them can conclusively be stated as coming from Jack the Ripper. 

So, who was Jack the Ripper, then? Well, I'm certainly not a Ripperologist and am not qualified to say, but I have to note that Steven Ryder’s factual comparison gives me great pause when it comes to identifying Walter Sickert as the killer. So much of the purported evidence is suspect, subjective, and coincidental. Yes, when it comes to solving crimes it can be true that even the little things can add up, and that perhaps coincidences aren't coincidences at all. But if we stick with the dictum that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, I think I could say that I couldn't convict Sickert if I was on a jury. He just happened to be a public figure whose works can easily be misread after the fact and in light of 21st century tales of crime and passion. In fact, the best summary of the Sickert-slash-Jack the Ripper phenomenon is a pointed and snarky one written for the Guardian newspaper’s art and design section. In a 2013 post, journalist Jonathan Jones sympathizes with “poor Sickert,” as he called him, whose name has been dragged through the mud by Cornwell and the like with their outlandish theories. Jones then continues on to declare that if we are pointing our fingers at Sickert as Jack the Ripper, then we could equally identify another renowned Victorian monster. He writes, quote, “Who knows, perhaps he was Dracula... After all, Dracula enters modern culture in a novel published in Sickert's London when this harsh, demonic painter was at work. I have researched this using the latest technology, and when you look at closely at Sickert’s painting of Minnie Cunningham, she has two small puncture marks on her throat. As for her name “Minnie” is clearly a reference to Mina Harker in Stoker’s Dracula-- which is therefore a veiled portrait of Sickert and his dark side. The red dress Sickert's Minnie Cunningham wears is a confession of the blood he needs to stay alive. Case closed: Walter Sickert was Dracula.” Unquote. Jones’s sarcasm hits the juicy center of this tale and the woes of overinterpretation, and his last line sums it all up perfectly: perhaps, Jones says, Sickert was, quote, “just a powerful painter whose art addresses the same themes of sex and city life that have turned the crimes of a nameless murderer into a modern myth.”  

Thank you for listening to the ArtCurious Podcast. This episode was written, produced, and narrated by me, Jennifer Dasal. Our theme music is by Alex Davis at alexdavismusic.com, our logo is by Dave Rainey at daveraineydesign.com, and social media help is by Emily Crockett and Caroline Haller. Our production and editorial services are provided by Kaboonki. Top-tier podcasts and video.. Learn more at kaboonki.com. Additional editing help is by Hannah Roberts. The ArtCurious Podcast is sponsored primarily by Anchorlight. Anchorlight is a creative space, founded with the intent of fostering artists, designers, and craftspeople at varying stages of their development. Home to artist studios, residency opportunities, and exhibition space Anchorlight encourages mentorship and the cross-pollination of skills among creatives in the Triangle.  please visit anchorlightraleigh.com. 

The ArtCurious Podcast is also fiscally sponsored by VAE Raleigh, a 501c3 nonprofit creativity incubator. We’re a fully independent podcast, and we rely on sponsors and donations to keep us going, so if you enjoy this show and have the means, please consider giving $10 to help this show, and thank you for your kindness. And if you don’t have money to give, that’s okay! You can help our show as well by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen-- believe me, it makes a huge difference and helps new listeners tune in. For more details about our show, including the image mentioned in this episode today, please visit our website: artcuriouspodcast.com. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at artcuriouspod. 

Check back in two weeks as we continue to explore the unexpected, the slightly odd, and the strangely wonderful in the true crime realm of art history.