Manchester artist goes from carpet shop to sharing a gallery wall with Picasso

An unknown Manchester artist is to have his work displayed alongside Picasso, Dali and Andy Warhol after one of his paintings caught the eye of illusionist Uri Geller.

Daniel Adler has been commissioned to produce a piece for Geller’s museum in Tel Aviv which houses an eclectic collection of art and artefacts amassed during the self-proclaimed psychic’s five decades in showbusiness.

It means Adler, 52, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, will be able to stop working as a stock controller at his family’s carpet business in Leigh, near Wigan — a job he has done for the past 36 years — and concentrate on art full-time.

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Uri Geller (Flash 90)

Until now the artist has sold his work through a local charity art shop for between £100 and £1,500 a time and his commissions have all come from congregants at South Manchester Synagogue, where Adler is a member.

But, after seeing a series of Adler’s intricate spirographic works which Geller likened to the lithographs of the Dutch graphic artist Escher, the spoon-bending entertainer asked him to create one for his Israeli gallery.

“A family friend showed Uri a series of my works I have simply called The Spirographs. He loved them, and asked to be put in touch,” Adler told the JC.

“We then had a long chat on Zoom during which he talked about his museum which includes an egg-shaped object from John Lennon and lots of paintings from Dali, whose surrealist dreamworlds have influenced my own work.