Shapeshifter: The Unpredictable Mr. Sickert

an influential British artist who was mistaken for a murderer

Walter Sickert, 1911. George Charles Beresford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

THE FIRST time I saw the name of the artist Walter Sickert was in a book by an author called Stephen Knight. His research for Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976), had led Knight to the conclusion that the artist, through his connections with the British royal family, was implicated in a cover-up of the notorious murders that took place in the East End of London in 1888. He proposed that the gruesome killings were perpetrated by individuals acting on behalf of the establishment, including the monarchy itself. It seemed a well-argued theory, and as with all of the well-argued theories about this distressing subject, it may be true, partially true, or have no truth in it whatsoever.