It is not strange to describe a particular painting as ‘haunting’; but to believe that one is actually haunted is an entirely different matter.
There are many across the globe, but here are a few from the (presently) United Kingdom.
Pictured above, Edwin Landseer's Man Proposes, God Disposes, is believed to be both haunted and a bad omen. Urban myth recounts how a student of Royal Holloway College did away with himself during exams by stabbing a pencil into an eye, writing "The polar bears made me do it" on their exam paper, which shows some grit if genuinely executed after the self-eye removal.
Another story is that anyone sitting in front of the painting during a written test will flunk it; leading teachers to shroud the painting with a Union Jack during student examinations. The subject matter of the painting refers to the disastrous expedition of Sir John Franklin, who 129 men to their deaths in 1845 attempting to chart the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. AMC’s 2018 mini-series The Terror posited that most of the crew were killed by a monster known as The Tuunbaq, a kind of polar version of The Wendigo.
The Haunting Henrietta Nelson
Henrietta Nelson died by falling down the stairs in her home at Yaxley Hall in the Suffolk town of Eye. She was then, as she wished, interred in a mausoleum on the property, but years later, new owners demolished the place, shifting her mortal remains to a nearby church. Nelson has haunted the grounds ever since, striving to return home to her desired resting place.
William Johnson’s unsettling portrait has supposedly become suffused with her will, her spectre forever there; some have reported her changing face in the painting, and she has also been seen grumpily wandering the grounds.
Curse of the Crying Boy
The Crying Boy is a mass-produced print of a group of paintings by the Italian Giovanni Bragolin (1911–1981), pen-name of artist Bruno Amarillo. Copies of the weepy work were blamed for a series of UK house fires in the 1980s, after being found undamaged amidst the ruins. Belief in the painting's curse was widespread enough that in November 1985, The Sun ‘newspaper’ was organizing mass bonfires of the paintings, sent in by their troglodytic readers.
However, research at the Building Research Establishment into Comedian/writer Steve Punt’s investigation for his BBC Radio 4 show Punt PI, apparently settled the matter. The BRE resolved the ‘haunted’ prints had been treated with a fire retarding varnish and, the string holding the portrait would burn, resulting in the painting landing face down on the floor and thus being protected. Why anyone would want to buy such a picture is beyond me. Way too creepy. And weepy.
Investigative journalist David Clarke said, "there is absolutely no truth”, to stories naming the Crying Boy as either Don Bonillo or...‘Diablo’.
By the way, claims that Bragolin fled to Spain after WWII, getting his start in the art world painting children from a local orphanage which later burned to the ground, also appear to be somewhat fanciful.
Other disturbing daubings - this time on film:
The Usher family portrait gallery
Edgar Allan Poe's The Oval Portrait (1972, after his 1842 short story)
And much more recently, the ‘haunted’ painting terrifying buyers:
Further afield than the UK, there are many, many, other examples, including
Arshile Gorky’s (1904-1948) works are said be cursed, with paintings reportedly catching fire, falling from walls, and being stalked by a specter in a long blue overcoat.
Most disturbingly, on March 1, 1962, American Airlines Flight 1, with 87 passengers, 8 crew members, and 15 abstract paintings by Gorky, hurtled into NYC’s Jamaica Bay just two minutes after taking off, killing everyone on board and destroying the paintings.
The disaster featured as a pivotal point in the 2008 Mad Men episode "Flight 1":
Death and the Child
Edvard Munch's Death and the Child (1899): Viewers have described the distraught girl's eyes following them with an eerie rustling noise emanating when close - attributed to the mother's bed sheets.
Earlier owners of the painting said the girl occasionally disappeared altogether from the canvas. Munch's mother and sister died of TB when he was just a child; memories of that trauma are a recurring motif throughout his paintings.
Since 1918, the painting has been in the collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen.
Pogo the Clown
When musician Nikki Stone bought the 1990s self-portrait by serial killer John Wayne Gacy (as ‘Pogo the Clown’) he had reason to regret the purchase when soon after, his dog died and his mother got cancer. A friend offered to keep the painting, but after a short while his neighbor was killed in a car crash; when a second pal stored it, he later attempted suicide. The seemingly cursed painting was never hung and was given to a local art dealer.
Portrait of a Lady
This portrait by Juan Luna (1857-1899), also known as Portrait of a Lady, is of the artist's wife, Paz Pardo de Tavera, who Juan Luna ‘murdered’. The haunted painting is reputedly possessed by the spirit of Paz, who brings great misfortune upon owners -car crashes, bankruptcy, miscarriage etc. On the opening night of a 1987 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, a spotlight bulb over the painting suddenly exploded.
Luna accused Paz of having an affair with a Monsieur Dussaq and in an extreme fit of jealousy, he shot the door his wife was behind, killing her, his mother-in-law and wounding his brother-in-law Félix in the process (on September 22, 1892). Luna was acquitted of the charges on February 8, 1893, as a ‘crime of passion’, the ‘unwritten law’ which essentially let men off for killing straying wives. Luna paid the Pardo de Taveras 1,651 francs and eighty three cents, and an additional 25 francs for postage, and one franc of claims for damages (dommages-intérêts).
In reality, the woman in the painting is apparently Angela Duche, a favourite subject for the painter, who was neither married to nor killed by the artist.
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