The Crying Boy Painting Curse

In 1985, British tabloid The Sun published a sensational story about a cursed painting that seemed to cause house fires while surviving intact. The “Crying Boy” prints—mass-produced reproductions showing a tearful child—became objects of terror across Britain, leading to bonfires, exorcisms, and one of the most bizarre supernatural panics of modern times.

The Painting

The original “Crying Boy” paintings were created by Italian artist Giovanni Bragolin (Bruno Amadio) in the 1950s. They depicted various children with tearful eyes and sad expressions. The paintings became popular as inexpensive reproductions, sold through department stores across Britain—by some estimates, over fifty thousand copies hung in British homes.

The paintings were kitsch, mass-produced art of the sort that decorated countless working-class homes. They had no reputation for the supernatural until 1985.

The Sun’s Story

On September 4, 1985, The Sun newspaper published a story headlined “Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy.” A firefighter from Rotherham claimed that he had noticed the painting surviving house fires that destroyed everything else in the room. The paper suggested the painting was cursed.

The story caught fire (as it were). Readers wrote in with their own stories of house fires where Crying Boy prints survived unharmed. Fire officials were quoted discussing the unusual phenomenon. The curse became a national talking point.

The Panic

Within weeks, The Sun was receiving mail from hundreds of readers terrified that their Crying Boy prints would cause their homes to burn. People described accidents, bad luck, and near-misses they attributed to the paintings.

The newspaper organized public bonfires where people could destroy their Crying Boy prints. In November 1985, The Sun burned thousands of the paintings at its headquarters. The event was covered as news, further spreading the curse story.

Explanations

Several explanations emerged for the paintings’ survival in fires. The prints were coated with a fire-retardant varnish that resisted flames longer than other materials. The string holding the painting to the wall would burn through, causing the painting to fall face-down on the floor, where it was protected from the flames above.

In other words, the paintings survived not because of a curse but because of their construction and positioning.

Fire investigators found no statistical evidence that homes with Crying Boy paintings were more likely to experience fires. The perception was a product of confirmation bias—people only noticed the paintings when they survived, not the countless times they burned along with everything else.

The Artist

Bruno Amadio, who died in 1981, never knew about the curse attributed to his work. His paintings were created with no supernatural intent. The children he depicted were real models—not, as some rumors claimed, orphans from a fire or children killed by flames.

The curse story caused distress to Amadio’s surviving family and to the models who posed for the original paintings.

Psychological Factors

The Crying Boy curse demonstrates how modern folk beliefs emerge and spread. The Sun’s story tapped into anxieties about the home, fire, and children. The paintings’ subject matter—sad, crying children—made them easy targets for superstitious concern.

The tabloid media amplified and profited from the fear. Each new letter, each new “confirmed” case, each bonfire became news that spread the curse further.

Legacy

The Crying Boy curse became a case study in media-created folklore. It demonstrated how tabloid newspapers could manufacture supernatural panics and how confirmation bias could create patterns from coincidence.

The paintings themselves became collectors’ items, sought by those who found the curse story amusing or who actively wanted allegedly cursed objects. The original artwork is now valued by collectors.

Assessment

The Crying Boy curse was almost certainly not supernatural. The paintings’ survival in fires had mundane explanations. The “curse” was a media creation that spread through confirmation bias and fear.

Yet the panic was real. People genuinely believed their homes were endangered. The curse had psychological effects on its believers, regardless of its lack of supernatural reality.

The case remains a fascinating example of how modern societies can still produce folklore and supernatural panics, particularly when media amplification creates feedback loops of belief and fear.