AN EXPLORATION of works painted by the noted Victorian artist Richard Dadd during his confinement in the Bethlem Royal Hospital and Broadmoor Hospital will be shown at Beckenham's Bethlem Gallery and Museum throughout this month.

The exhibition, which opens on January 12, investigates Dadd’s range of emotional expressions from agony to joy and hatred to love - passions suppressed by Victorian society.

These rarely exhibited paintings were executed by Dadd during his time in Broadmoor Hospital and will be shown alongside the Bethlem’s unrivalled collection of his Sketches to Illustrate the Passions.

Richard Dadd was a promising young artist with the potential to become a leading talent in the early Victorian art world.

He is now better known for the murder of his father in 1843 and the years he subsequently spent in the Bethlem and Broadmoor Hospitals.

The works completed during his time at Bethlem reveal a mind actively exploring a world of fantasy.

His most famous works include The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke now on display at Tate Britain, and Contradiction: Oberon and Titania, owned by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and last on public display in 2003 at the Royal Academy.

Dadd also explored a darker side of human experience, in his Sketches to Illustrate the Passions, which depict a wide range of emotions, many of which could be associated with mental distress.

Bethlem Museum curator Michael Phillips said: "This exhibition enables visitors to see a number of paintings in this series, alongside rarely seen works for Broadmoor Hospital’s theatre, in which Dadd continued to pursue his theme of human emotions, both joyful and dramatic."

To complement the Bethlem Gallery exhibition the adjacent Bethlem Museum will also be displaying earlier works by this enigmatic painter.

The Passions of Richard Dadd. Bethlem Gallery and Museum, Monks Orchard Road, Beckenham. Until January 12. Visit bethlemgallery.com