# Richard Upton Pickman — Short Fiction character guide

> Richard Upton Pickman in Short Fiction by H. P. Lovecraft.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Pickman

**First appearance:** 0044-pickman-s-model

## Snapshot

A Boston painter whose canvases of ghouls and subterranean horrors are too anatomically true to be merely imagined.

## Who they are

Pickman is the black sheep of an old Boston family, a painter whose work is so repellent that even hardened gallery circles recoil from it. He insists his ghouls are drawn from life, and his talk of tunnels, charnel places, and things that feed below the city carries a conviction no mere artist should possess. His friendship with the narrator draws the reader down into that conviction, where aesthetic daring and genuine monstrosity become impossible to separate.

## In the story

### [Pickman's Model](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_26_se/chapters/pickman-s-model)

A brilliant but disturbing painter whose works depict ghouls and hellish scenes with terrifying realism, hinting at his own inhuman nature.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_26_se/characters/pickman
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_26_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_26_se/characters