curse: a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict destruction or punishment on a person or thing
(Oxford English Dictionary)
A crying boy painting by Anna Zinkeisen
Ancient curses invoked by tomb-raiders have remained a popular theme in fiction and folklore for centuries. However, belief in cursed objects is not confined to legends surrounding Egyptian relics, or to the subjects of the M.R. James stories. In the modern world there are many who believe they have personally experienced uncanny phenomena as a result of contact with a cursed artefact. Portraits or human likenesses, whether carved or painted, are frequently the focus of this type of legend. In recent years, stories of bad luck and misfortune have grown up around certain artefacts that are presumed to have had ritual or magical functions, some of which are apparently quite recent in origin. (1)
In folk belief, the notion that a picture falling from a wall as an omen of impending death – particularly if it is a portrait – remains one of the most widespread modern superstitions. Similarly, eerie portraits whose eyes ‘seem to follow you wherever you go’ have become a staple scene-setter in numerous horror flicks. Folklore is not static, but active and dynamic especially when it invokes latent beliefs rooted in older superstitions. The subject of this article is the fear and anxiety that continues to surround an eerie portrait that has, quite literally, blazed a trail across the British Isles and the world in the space of two decades.
‘The Curse of the Crying Boy’ appeared out of the blue one morning in 1985. The Sun, at that time the most popular tabloid newspaper in the English-speaking world, published on page 13 of its 4 September edition, a story headlined: ‘Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy.’ It told how Ron and May Hall blamed a cheap painting of toddler with tears rolling down his face for a fire which gutted their terraced council home in Rotherham, a mining town in South Yorkshire. The blaze broke out in a chip-pan in the kitchen of their home of 27 years and spread rapidly. But although the downstairs rooms of the house were badly damaged, the framed print of the crying boy escaped unscathed. It continued to hang there, undamaged, surrounded by a scene of devastation.
Normally a chip-pan blaze would merit nothing more than a couple of paragraphs in a local newspaper. What transformed this story into a page lead in Britain’s leading tabloid was the intervention of Ron Hall’s brother Peter, a fire fighter based in Rotherham. A colleague of Peter’s, station officer Alan Wilkinson, said he knew of numerous other similar cases where prints of the ‘crying boy’ had turned up, undamaged, in the ruins of homes destroyed by fires.
Accompanying the article was a photograph of a ‘crying boy’, with a caption: ‘Tears for fears…the portrait that firemen claim is cursed.’ The firemen concerned had not used the word ‘cursed’, but nevertheless the newspaper report which said they had helped to give the story a certain level of credibility. The paper added that an estimated 50,000 ‘crying boy’ prints, signed ‘G. Bragolin’, had been sold in branches of British department stores, particularly in the working class areas of northern England. Examples could be seen hanging in the front rooms and lounges of family homes across the nation and one story suggested a quarter of a million had been sold.
The mass media plays a crucial role in creating and spreading modern folklore. Stories like the ‘crying boy’ behave much like a virus when they take root in the imagination of the masses. Furthermore, tabloid news values and the priority given to providing a ‘good story’ frequently override accuracy and scepticism, particularly where uncanny or supernatural events are concerned.
Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie in their warts-and-all history of The Sun, Stick it up your Punter! (1990), credit legendary editor Kelvin MacKenzie as the father of the ‘crying boy’ curse. During the mid-80s The Sun was engaged in a battle for readers with its Fleet Street rival, the Daily Mirror. It was also responsible for publishing a series of horrific and bizarre stories with tenuous origins, of which some – such as ‘Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster’ – earned a permanent place in pop culture. The crying boy arrived at a time when MacKenzie was on the look-out for what journalists call ‘a great splash’. A splash for him was an exclusive story that none of his rivals would dream of publishing first. MacKenzie’s stroke of genius was to spot the potential of the story buried in routine copy from a regional news agency. He announced confidently to his staff: ‘This one’s got legs,’ his phrase for a story that would ‘run and run.’
On 5 September 1985 The Sun ran its follow-up, reporting that scores of ‘horrified readers claiming to be victims of the “Curse of the Crying Boy” had flooded [the paper] with calls…they all feared they were jinxed by having the print of a tot with tears pouring down his face in their homes.’ Readers were left with an overwhelming impression of a supernatural link. Words and phrases used – ‘curse’, ‘jinx’, ‘feared’, ‘horrified’ – were laden with sinister foreboding.
Typical of the new stories was that told by Dora Mann, from Mitcham, Surrey, who claimed her house was gutted just six months after she bought a print of the painting. ‘All my paintings were destroyed – except the one of the crying boy,’ she claimed. Sandra Kaske, of Kilburn, North Yorkshire, said that she, her sister-in-law, and a friend had all suffered disastrous fires since they acquired copies. Another family, from Nottingham, blamed the print for a blaze which had left them homeless. Brian Parks, whose wife and three children needed treatment for smoke inhalation, said he had destroyed his copy after returning from hospital to find it hanging – undamaged – on the blackened wall of his living room.
As the stories accumulated, new details emerged that encouraged the idea that possession of a print put owners at risk of fire or serious injury. One owner, from London, claimed she had seen her print ‘swing from side to side’ on the wall while another from Paignton, said her 11 year-old son had ‘caught his private parts on a hook’ after she bought the picture. Mrs Rose Farrington of Preston, in a letter published by The Sun, wrote that: ‘Since I bought it in 1959 my three sons and my husband have all died. I’ve often wondered if it had a curse.’
Another reader reported an attempt to destroy two of the prints by fire – only to find, to her horror, they would not burn. Her claim was tested by security guard Paul Collier who tossed one of his two prints onto a bonfire. Despite being left in the flames for an hour, it was not even scorched. ‘It was frightening – the fire wouldn’t even touch it,’ he told The Sun. ‘I really believe it is jinxed. We feel doubly at risk with two of these in the house [and] we are determined to get rid of them.’
Collier’s story provided a neat link to comments by the firemen who recalled the aftermath of house fires in Rotherham where the print inexplicably escaped damage. The real mystery, from their perspective, was how the picture had survived fires that were in themselves perfectly explicable. In most cases straightforward explanations of carelessly discarded cigarettes, overheated chip-pans and faulty electric heaters had been found during the subsequent fire service investigation.
a 'crying boy' story published by The Sun
Rotherham fire station officer Alan Wilkinson who, it emerged, had personally logged fifty ‘crying boy’ fires dating back to 1973, dismissed any connection with the supernatural. Wilkinson, who had 33 years experience, said he wasn’t superstitious and had satisfied himself that most had been caused by human carelessness. But despite his pragmatism, he could not explain how they had survived the inferno which generated heat sufficient to strip plaster from walls. His wife had her own theory: ‘I always say it’s the tears that put the fire out.’ The Sun was not interested in finding a rational explanation. It ignored Wilkinson’s comments and claimed ‘fire chiefs have admitted they have no logical explanation for a number of recent incidents.’
Soon afterwards it emerged that the ‘cursed’ prints were not all copies of the same painting, nor were all the prints by the same artist. The picture that survived the fire in Rotherham that initially triggered the scare was signed by the artist, G. Bragolin. The Sun claimed the original was ‘by an Italian artist.’ In fact, Giovanni Bragolin was a pseudonym adopted by Spanish painter, Bruno Amadio, who is also known as ‘Franchot Seville’. Attempts to trace him floundered as art historians said he did not appear to have ‘a coherent biography’. To make matters more confusing, other ‘crying boys’ featured in the fires, part of a series of studies called ‘Childhood’, were painted by a Scottish artist, Anna Zinkeisen, who died in 1976. The only common denominator was that all were examples of cheap, mass produced prints sold in great numbers by English department stores during the 60s and 70s. The geographical cluster simply reflected their popularity among working class communities in that part of the north.
Despite being dismissed by art critics as kitsch ‘the crying boy’ remained an extremely popular print, particularly for women owners. Examples existed in at least five different variations. At least two of these had companion studies of ‘crying girls’ and some people owned copies of both. Others in the series included pictures of girls and boys holding flowers, most of them sad in tone. In defiance of the scare headlines, some owners had developed such an emotional bond with the print they refused to dispose of them. ‘I’ve never cared for the picture myself because of its sadness,’ the partner of one proud owner was quoted as saying. He then went on to pose two questions which many anxious Sunreaders wanted answered: ‘Why would you want a picture of a child crying? Why was the child crying?’
Naturally journalists turned to experts in the field of folklore and the occult for an explanation. When a journalist approached Folklore Society member Georgina Boyes the interview floundered when she refused to provide a suitably Satanic explanation. Consequently, the journalist concerned ‘went off in search of “a witch” or “somebody into the occult” who might make a better headline.’ Then Roy Vickery, secretary of the Folklore Society, was quoted to the effect that the original artist might have mistreated the child model in some way, adding: ‘All these fires could be child’s curse, his way of getting revenge.’ (2)
A print of Zinkeisen’s crying boy became the centre of the next ‘mysterious fire’ reported by The Sun. This destroyed a council house in Rotherham, a town that had emerged not only as the geographical location of many of the reported fires, but also as the source of the whole phenomenon. The same story quoted a Fire Brigade spokesman reassuring owners of the print that although there was no ’cause for alarm…these incidents are becoming more frequent.’
The widespread anxiety this story generated led South Yorkshire Fire Service to issue a statement which aimed to debunk the connection between the fires and the prints. It pointed out that the most recent blaze was started by an electric fire left too close to a bed. Chief Divisional Officer Mick Riley said a large number of the prints had been sold and ‘any connection with the fires is purely coincidental…fires are not started by pictures or coincidence, but by careless acts and omissions.’ Riley then revealed the service’s own explanation: ‘The reason why this picture has not always been destroyed in the fire is because it is printed on high density hardboard, which is very difficult to ignite.’
The Fire Service’s statement failed to have much effect in dousing the flames which The Sun was happily stoking. Soon afterwards news came of a crying boy that had survived a fire which gutted an Italian restaurant in Great Yarmouth. ‘Enough is enough, folks,’ announced MacKenzie to his readers: ‘If you are worried about a crying boy picture hanging in YOUR home, send it to us immediately. We will destroy it for you – and that should see the back of any curse.’
According to Chippindale and Horrie’s account: ‘…worried readers rang in to ask if they should get rid of their copy to stop their houses burning down. “Sure,” MacKenzie replied. “Send them in – we’ll do the job for you.” Bouverie Street was swamped…the Crying Boys were soon stacked twelve feet high in the newsroom, spilling out of cupboards, and entirely filling a little-used interview room.’
Up to that point MacKenzie’s staff couldn’t work out how much credence their boss attached to the story. When the paper’s assistant editor took down a picture of Winston Churchill, which had been hanging on the newsroom wall since the Falklands War, and replaced it with a crying boy, the mystery was resolved: ‘MacKenzie, bustling into the newsroom at his normal half-run, stopped dead in his tracks and went white. “Take that down,” he snapped. “I don’t like it. It’s bad luck.”‘
Fireman Alan Wilkinson reacted in a similar fashion when his colleagues presented him with a framed crying boy on his retirement from the brigade. Like Kelvin MacKenzie he denied being superstitious, but nevertheless immediately returned the painting saying: ‘No thanks, you can keep it.’ Similarly, Chief Officer Mick Riley, who was responsible for the statement debunking the ‘curse’ wouldn’t accept a copy of the print as a gift, saying his wife ‘wouldn’t like it, it wouldn’t fit in.’ Interviewed by his local paper, Wilkinson admitted that he had been presented with another crying boy print by worried woman who turned up at his home one night. He took it to work and ‘as a joke’ and mounted it on the office wall of the fire station. Within days he was ordered by his superiors to take it down. Heaping irony upon comedy, the story continued: ‘The same day an oven in the upstairs kitchen overheated and the firemen’s dinners were burned.’
Kelvin MacKenzie faced a similar dilemma. At the end of his six week ‘crying boy’ campaign the editor of The Sun had to dream up a suitable way of disposing of 2,500 copies of the print that readers had sent in. His initial plan to burn them on the roof of the paper’s Bouverie Street offices was vetoed by both the London and Thames Valley fire brigades. Both refused to co-operate and denounced the whole campaign ‘as a cheap publicity stunt.’ The reasons for their reluctance were becoming clear. It emerged that nationally the fire service had been the focus of hundred calls and visits by anxious owners who believed the prints were cursed, or that they were made of a dangerous flammable material.
Eventually reporter Paul Hooper, with photographers and Page Three girls in tow, left the paper’s Bouverie Street HQ with two van loads of prints ready for burning on a makeshift pyre near Reading. The Sun splashed the story appropriately on Hallowe’en, under the headline: ‘Sun nails curse of the weeping boy for good.’ A photograph depicted a scantily-clad ‘red hot Page Three beauty Sandra Jane Moore’ feeding the bonfire as bemused firemen looked on.
The Hallowe’en burning was widely believed to have exorcised the ‘curse of the crying boy’ and the number of tabloid stories began to decrease. But in March the following year a columnist in the Western Morning Newspointed out that the industrial turmoil faced by News International (owners of The Sun), which involved strikes and violent picketing at their new Fort Wapping production plant, began shortly after the paper’s bonfire. Poking fun at its Fleet Street rival, the paper implied the jinx so feared by Kelvin MacKenzie had finally been visited upon its creator.
Crying Boy curse exorcised by The Sun
As tabloid interest waned, ‘crying boy’ stories began to morph into a modern legend. New versions appeared, including one which suggested those who were kind to the print were rewarded with good luck. Another was the idea that placing a picture of the ‘crying girl’ next to that of the crying boy would bring good luck or avert bad luck. What the story lacked in 1985-86 was a satisfying narrative explaining how the crying boy came to be a source of fire. Soon that story would be supplied and the arrival of the internet would provide the legend with a new lease of life independent of the print media which originally set it running.
One web-source claims that during the nineties crying boy fires began to be reported for the first time from other parts of the world. It also reflects how the basic cursed painting motif was being moulded by professional story-tellers and paranormal investigators for a new audience: ‘…A medium claims the spirit of the boy is trapped in the painting and it starts fires in an attempt to burn the painting and free itself. Others claim the painting is haunted or attracts poltergeist activity. Stories of the artist’s and subject’s misfortune had attached themselves to the painting.’ (3)
The notion that the ‘crying boy’ had been badly treated by the artist was gaining popularity. Few cared that there were several different paintings and artists, or that this idea began life as a throwaway remark offered to The Sun a decade earlier. In 2000 Tom Slemen revived the story in book form as part of his series titled Haunted Liverpool. Slemen’s books are presented as non-fiction but are largely un-referenced. Like many others in this genre, the stories they contain are presented in an entertaining, narrative style which appeals to a mass readership. In his entry on ‘The Crying Boy Jinx’ Slemen states as fact that the ‘head of the Yorkshire Fire Brigade’ had told newspapers that the crying boy print had turned up in the rubble of houses that had ‘mysteriously burnt to the ground.’ According to Slemen, when journalists asked him if he believed the picture was evil, ‘the fire chief refused to comment.’
a "crying boy" by G. Bragolin
This factually incorrect account introduced the narrative which followed. This finally explained why the picture was evil. The story was uncovered by ‘a well respected researcher into occult matters, a retired schoolmaster from Devon named George Mallory’ in 1995. Mallory traced the artist who had painted the original, ‘an old Spanish portrait artist named Franchot Seville, who lives in Madrid.’ Seville, as astute readers will recognise, was one of the pseudonyms used by Bruno Amadio, otherwise known as ‘G. Bragolin’ whose signature appeared on some of the prints. So far so good.
According to Slemen, Seville/Amadio/Bragolin told Mallory the subject of the paintings was a little street urchin he had found wandering around Madrid in 1969. He never spoke, and had a very sorrowful look in his eyes. Seville painted the boy, and a Catholic priest identified him as Don Bonillo, a child who had run away after seeing his parents die in a blaze. ‘The priest told the artist to have nothing to do with the runaway, because wherever he settled, fires of unknown origin would mysteriously break out; the villagers called him “Diablo” because of this.’
Nevertheless, the painter ignored the priest’s advice and adopted the boy. His portraits sold well but one day his studio was destroyed by fire and the artist was ruined. He accused the little boy of arson and Bonillo ran off, naturally in tears, and was never seen again. The story continued: ‘…from all over Europe came the reports of the unlucky Crying Boy paintings causing blazes. Seville was also regarded as a jinx, and no one commissioned him to paint, or would even look at his paintings. In 1976, a car exploded into a fireball on the outskirts of Barcelona after crashing into a wall. The victim was charred beyond recognition, but part of the victim’s driving licence in the glove compartment was only partly burned. The name on the licence was one 19-year-old Don Bonillo.’ (4)
Could this be the same orphan villagers knew as ‘Diablo’? In Wild Talents Charles Fort referred to such people as fire genii, ‘by genius I mean one who can’t avoid knowledge of fire, because he can’t avoid setting things afire.’ While the existence of some fire starters, such as the telekinetic medium Nina Kulagina, is well documented, this was not the case with Don Bonillo. The source of Slemen’s story is unknown and the mysterious ‘George Mallory’ proves to be as untraceable as ‘Franchot Seville’ or ‘Giovanni Bragolin.’
The appearance of the Don Bonillo story completes the metamorphosis of the ‘curse of the crying boy’ from tabloid obscurity to a fully-fledged urban legend accessible to anyone via the agency of the world wide web. The lack of any factual basis for the Bonillo legend has done nothing to erode its popularity, stoked by ‘supernatural’ discussion boards on the world wide web.
In 2002 I was invited to comment on the story for an episode of the reality TV series, Scream Team. Inspired by the success of Most Haunted, this plucked six young people from hundreds of hopefuls, then sent them out in a large silver bus to travel around the British Isles investigating legends, curses and ‘haunted places.’ The premise was to encourage the sceptics and believers in the group to resolve each puzzle by drawing upon the expertise of assorted ‘experts’.
For the ‘Curse of the Crying Boy’ the team were dispatched to Wigan, Lancashire, where the owners of a transport café, Eddie and Marian Brockley, had recently suffered a disastrous fire. The local media had linked this to what they claimed was ‘one of the last surviving copies’ of the print. It had survived the café blaze and remained hanging on the blackened wall, untouched by smoke or fire. Eddie, it emerged, was a typically bluff northern pragmatist. He believed the link was pure coincidence, but his wife was less certain. She had heard of similar fires associated with the crying boy and refused to allow the offending print – a Zinkeisen – back into the café.
Although the couple were largely ambivalent about the idea of a curse they played along with the TV show’s plan. Then along came the sceptical journalist who did his best to place the story in its true context. My contribution, provided over a hearty full English breakfast, summarised the various stories surrounding the print that were circulating on the internet, including Tom Slemen’s account of the infant fire-starter. There was no factual evidence, I explained, that ‘Don Bonillo’ actually existed; rather the story itself was a classic example of an urban legend created by a newspaper, and spread by the internet.
Inevitably, the next expert introduced to the team was a trance medium whose task was to ‘tune in’ to the painting whose history, viewers were assured, she knew absolutely nothing about. Nevertheless within minutes she was able to divine not only a direct link between the painting and an artist who lived in Spain, but also a sensation of burning and visions of a car crash. She was even able to name the little boy involved in the crash as ‘Din, Don or Dan’. This was enough to convince the more superstitious members of the team that there really was something in ‘the curse’.
The programme ended with the team agreeing to destroy the Brockley’s copy of the Crying Boy outside the café in order to disperse any surviving evil influence it might retain. The print was doused with petrol and attempts were made to ignite it. Three attempts were made before the print finally succumbed to the flames, to the great relief of the Scream Team.
The idea of the curse has so much latent energy that my own interest in the legend has led me to become the unwitting agent for its resurrection. Early last year the Sheffield Starnewspaper carried a leading article on my research into the story of the cursed painting. Soon afterwards, the paper – and my inbox – was inundated with emails and letters from owners of surviving prints, many of whom wanted me to remove them from their property. One reader, who had just cleared his mother’s house in which a crying boy was discovered, wrote to say: ‘My wife will not have the picture in the house. I have had to hang it in the garden shed with fire extinguishers at the ready!’
Then in July The Star announced that the curse had returned. A fire had gutted a house in Rotherham, the town where the legend began. The owner, Stan Jones, claimed this was the latest of three separate house fires, each of which had the picture hanging on a wall. He bought his copy for £2 at a market a decade ago and had become fond of it, but now he was naturally having second thoughts. On the third occasion Stan and partner Michelle Houghton, who was heavily pregnant, narrowly escaped death after falling asleep after leaving their supper cooking on a grill. Stan raised the alarm and fire fighters were able to reach his unconscious partner just in time to revive her.
Meanwhile discussion boards across the world continue to debate the source of the ‘curse’ which animates the portraits. Prints occasionally turn up for sale on Ebay, while a Dutch ‘Crying Boy Fan Club’ website briefly appeared, then disappeared in 2006. A Google search throws up an intriguing posting from Rodrigo Faria, from Brazil, which attributes the painting to the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin and adds that ‘feelings of terror and illness are always associated with his paintings.’ Faria says the prints were popular in Brazil during the 1980s. ‘I’ve seen all the 28 and I can assure you all of those paintings are representing DEAD children,’ he writes. ‘[They] are filled with [subliminal] messages.’ (5) Another Brazilian adds that Bargolin appeared on a popular Brazilian TV channel where he admitted making ‘an evil pact with the Devil’ to sell his paintings. His advice was: ‘PLEASE if you have one of these paintings, throw it away right now.’
Like other enduring modern legends, the curse of the crying boy is alive and well and looking for new victims.
Notes & References
(1) See FT 76:19 ‘Stealing the Hopi soul’. For examples of curses associated with carved Celtic stone heads and ‘screaming skulls’ see Fortean Studies 3 (1996), 126-158.
(2) Georgina Boyes, Perspectives on Contemporary Legend vol 4 (Sheffield, 1989).
(4) Slemen’s story , from Haunted Liverpool 4 (2000) is reproduced online at
(5) For this posting and others continuing the discussion see: http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000104.php
Printed & other resources:
The Sun, Daily Mirror, The Star, Guardian, Rotherham Star, Rotherham Advertiser, September 1985-March 1986
Sheffield Star, 21 February, 5 & 15 March, 7 July 2007
Chippindale, Peter and Horrie, Chris, Stick It Up Your Punter!: The uncut story of the Sun newspaper (London: Simon & Schuster 1990)
Fortean Times 46:22; 47; 36 (1986); 69:17 (1993)
The Scream Team, ‘Curse of the Crying Boy’ (Living TV, 15 October 2002).
Slemen, Tom, Haunted Liverpool 4, Bluecoat Press 2000.
Originally published in Fortean Times 234 (April 2008) – text Copyright David Clarke 2010
David Clarke is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He teaches media law and his research specialism is contemporary legend. Previously he worked as a journalist for The Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post and spent four years working as a Press Officer in local government. His PhD in Folklore and was completed at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield, in 1999. From 2008-13 he acted as consultant and curator of the MoD UFO files project with The National Archives. His books include The Angel of Mons (2004) and How UFOs Conquered the World: the history of a modern myth (2015). In 2018 he co-founded the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University. This blog covers his twin research interests in journalism and folklore. The views expressed in the contents are entirely his own.
drdavidclarke.co.uk 
While I was reading your article on the so-called “Curse of the Crying Boy” my best friend sncuck up behind me while I was oblivious of her movements (being captivated by your prose)n and gave me a HOTFOOT!
NOW what hast thou got to say about this CURSE, Clarke?????
I have the painting hanging on my wall and i would like to know its value..Can u help me.
i have a crying boy painting. my nan bought it 4 my mum when i was 2 cos it looked like me. that was 43 years ago. its the one with blonde hair wearing red top with blue dungerees and has the initials az in top right hand corner
i have the same picture bought by my grandma for the same reason. It looked like me at that age. I am now 43 too! I love the picture and nothing has ever happened here!
My mum burnt the picture
put the painting upside down and you will have a surprise
I have a painting of this little boy signed AZ in the top right corner .Its a beautiful painting and l hope that the misconceptions about this painting can be put to rest .
There seem to be a lot of house fires.
Has anyone compiled statistics of how many fires have been started where a Crying Boy is not hung on the wall.
A very interesting article. Not only for its insight into the workings of a modern legend, but also the relationship between the press and readers maintaining their beliefs even after being presented with compelling arguments.
I was clearing out my mother in laws loft when I came across the crying boy print. I thought it was a lovely painting but having read the stories attached the the print, I’m a little concerned !
Get rid of it. Once you know the curse, the curse gets you.l
Holy shit balls! Just came across this Picture between the wood in the old as frame i got a few days ago.. Its the crying boy CURSED picture.. The frame was restored in 1934 apparently the painting cant burn! and when we ripped it out from behind the painting i almost cried! wtf do i do burn it?? im freaked out.. anyone know anything about this?
yes if you pass the painting on to some one else and the curse wont effect u
My Father came home from Cyprus with a picture of the crying Boy when I was just a child…I fell in love with it right away. In all the time i lived at home with my parents, we never once had a fire. The only fire I have ever had was when I moved out (age 25) to live with my boyfriend. Not long afterwards I asked if I could have the painting, and my parents gave it to me. From that day to this (I am now 44) I have never had another fire. Perversely, the only fire my parents have had was after they gave the painting to me – i.e.when the painting was no longer in their possession. I still have the painting and still love it, and have never understood the hysteria or this cursed nonsense! If anything I feel like this painting has brought me luck.
I am 60 yrs old and I bought this print in 1990’s. Nothing bad has ever happened and I still love it.
I have picture of little boy holding kitten my dad says it evil and to get rid
it is evil your father right i got rid of mine as i had a fire not long after getting it and it swang from side to side
I have a framed print of a crying boy. The one wearing red shirt and blue dungarees. Been in my lift for 21 years but have had it for about 34 years. It is by Anna zinkiesen.
just watched a programme called cursed. it was story of the crying boy i have had this painting for 25years, nothing wrong has happened so far. is there any truth to the story. i never knew the story before.
Dont take any notice of things like that Enjoy your picture. I bought the set in 1961 and have had a wonderful happy and blessed life. All I see is a sad little boy
I have a print of. The. Crying boy from Anna Zinkeisen I got after my parents died and still no fire plus it looks just like me when I was just a little girl.
I have this same picture and have had it for many years I love it …
it’s really amazing matter ,,when I was listening his story… me also afraid too,
I have just bought a painting of the Crying boy by AZ. I love it, but after reading all the bad stuff about it, I don’t know what to do with it….He looks so similar to my son when he was little..
We were a family and in 1988 the 2 pictures my mum had the crying boy and girl remained in tack after a fire broke out in our house. My parents did not survive.
My mums cosins girlfriend has one in their flat.She says her nan gave it to her and nothing bad has happend and they have good luck mostly all the time except when she had a miscarriage with her daughter Rebbeca rose and that’s it.And when ever I go to school I tell my friends and my friend is 10 just like me and she says its not real but it is.Besides who ever is in her house he watches them go past because even though he is lookin righ if I stand at the left its like me the eyes move.I said to her she is lucky that its not in her bedroom because that would be really scary
I am sorry I don’t have a clue ,but if many were destroyed then , it means our copies have to be worth somethingthat is for yhose that are not superstitious 😉
I was staying at my husbands parents house as my first baby was due to be born any day and because I was having a big baby stayed in there king size bed. I saw a picture on the wall that I had never drrn before this was 1976 andhhad never heard of any curse. I remember looking at it and thinking the plastic frame looked really cheap but that the painting was beautiful but sad and I felt really uneasy but didn’t know why. I went into labour that night and my baby boy died. I also had a ripped bladder from the forceps so I was in a terrible state. After being in hospital for over a month I went back to my in laws to Recuperate and slept in the back room where I broke down and thought about my baby i d lost when a strange calmness came over me where I looked up and there was a picture on the wall of a little girl picking a poppy smiling. It was beautifully painted and I knew at that moment I was going to have another baby and it was going to be a girl and everything would be OK. I now have a 37year old daughter who is my world and she has given me two grandsons so the crying boy is a sad picture but a very beautiful one.
Omg guys i have that painting in my house! We have had it for about 6+ years! Nothing ever happened but i never liked the way.. it stared at me.. i am a 10 year old girl, i am soo freaked out right now! The way i found this out in the first place is i saw a.. video on youtube and the thumbnail was the picture! And obvi i secrched it on google!
I had this on my wall my son had the whooping cough vacine and was left with brain damage.
I have the girl 1 been passed down from my gypsy nan very old but don’t no what think of it all she looks very sad
They are beautiful and I love my boy
My mum has this picture but they said they herd about the curse and they hang it in a cubourd facing the wall so no one looks at it they believe if they try n get rid of it something bad will happen x
My mum has this picture they herd bout this curse so it hangs in the coubourd facing the wall they believe if they try n get rid of it that’s when sum fin will happen
i painted one of these pictures for myself i dont believe in them curses and to be honest think it is comforting looking at the pic he is someone that makes me understand how lucky we all are and what we have
I have a copy for over one year, nothing happend 😀 if you don”t beleve it, nothing happens
we have the boy and the girl, facing each other , they have been together for over 20 years, they are tucked up in the warmth of the loft, looking after us .
What a load of rubbish , media starts this rubbish story to line there pockets and then everyone little brains finds a link. It’s a picture nothing more. My mum had one and guess what…No fires. No illness no nothing just a picture hanging on the fireplace for years.
Just about any painting of a person looking outward from a side position is just way too creepy.
The crying boy captures that ultra weird look perfectly.
I had this picture with the blonde boy in dungarees, in a bed sit (in 1972) we were in when newly married. Whilst pregnant I wld always look at the picture hoping my little boy looked like the lad in the picture. He was handsome, but not like the boy. I was just so grateful I got my healthy boy, whom I adored. Just wish I had not listened to this crazy story of the curse, and parted with the print, as it brought me happiness. I did see in the paper years later that the house burned down years later, but no boy print was there. I loved it.
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Reminds me of a story about a bloke watching telly at home with his cat when some ghosts phone him up about an oven fire.
You forgot the part about the wife that didn’t exist. But that cat was not happy, that’s for sure.
I just want to sell it because my kids don’t like it .Maybe they like the three stripes . my brother painted it and it would be a shame to end up hiding its very nice and what curse hogwash
My grandmother had a painting like that above my bed when I was sleeping there as a kid. I never felt safe there and always wanted to sleep next to her when I was there. I always felt sad when I was looking at the painting and I didn’t really like it.
About 5 years ago i was home alone while my family was on holiday. One evening i was watching a movie when i noticed that something was smelling like burning plastic.
I did walk around the house and found nothing wrong. I did go back to continue watching the move. A while after the smell of burning plastic came back.
Once again i did go check the house to locate the reason of the smell. When i did look up stairs to the first floor i could se smoke. I ran up there and entered my room. When i opened the door there was flames everywhere.
i was in panic and ran after a bucket to get water and fight the fire. I remember it was hot and hard to breath and se where to go. I remember how hard it was fighting the flames and the time. I knew I would pass out if I keep fighting so I had to give up and get out after 5-10 minutes. I realised that if I ended passing out inside the house it would be the end so I took the animals and left the burning house.
A big part of the house was destroyed. When we started cleaning and remove the things that didn’t get destroyed I remember finding the painting from my grandmothers house complete intact but didn’t think much about it.
Then yesterday I was watching on YouTube a video with cursed objects and saw a painting like the same painting my grandmother had and found information about the cursed painting.
I still have nightmares about 5 years after the fire.
I don’t know what happened to the painting after the fire. Haven’t seen it since but I know I found it in the remaining things after the fire
I did never believe in the supernatural or curses but after yesterday I have been thinking a lot about it.
If the curse exist would it then keep following me?
I’ve had a similar experience… My nan had this painting hanging in her living room for years when I was a kid 30 years ago.. and a few years later there was a fire that destroyed most of the house.. I remember after wards upon cleaning up that the painting was bearly damaged! Propper weird coz never thought anything of it until seeing this 😨
It’s a beautiful picture, I am by no means superstitious, and I love my crying boy 💛
Me and my cousin saw the picture crying when we were about 6 or 7 and my aunt and uncle burnt it
Today I went to a charity shop in West Bromwich Town where I purchased the crying boy painting for five pounds. There is a label on the back with the name of the artist and another label with the date of Tuesday August 3rd 1976. The painting is called Childhood by Anna Zinkeisen who passed away in September 1976.
Hi, I lived at 102 Newcastle Road, Trent Vale (my families house), my nan had one of these pics, always smelt of fire and one night my dad and I heard her screaming she was on fire, we couldnt get in the door, after a short time we retried the door, went in and found her fast asleep. in morning burn marks around pic frame and her cardigan had burn marks all over it.
To this day the property has something in that room.
Any 1 looking to get rid of the cursed crying boy painting I am looking to give them away I am willing to take them off ur hands. In order to rid urself of this curse u must gift it to a willing person. I am very willing.
Ive got a pitcher of a crying boy with the blond hair and red top and blue dungerrains with the AZ at the top
I found one of the painting signed by C PARIS at a huge bargage disposal at San Miguel de Heredia.I love it, it is hanging on my kitchen at San Luis de Heredia, Braulio Carrillo Rainforest National Park ¨Zurqui¨.I am a 68 years olde retired supervisor of the New York City Board Of Education, living at my place of birth Costa Rica.
Thanks Luis I would love to see a photograph of your painting!
Hi my name is Ann and my mum has had the crying boy for over 50 yrs and now it’s mine. We have had no problems with it.
I have this picture hanging in my living room. I’ve had it for several years now and have often wandered if it had a meaning. I bought it at a auction. A friend of mine came across this article today and immediately texted me and told me to look it up. Very interesting!!
I included a miniature version of the painting in my abandoned house scale diorama 😉
Me and my wife got this picture of the crying blue boy in the1970s so far we have had 2house fires one very bad and two house floods burst water pipes both times my wife says nothing to do with the picture just bad luck
It makes a great story. I saw the painting in a antique shop in Bridgnorth and I recognised it as being in our home when I was a child. I bought it but not without buying a similar painting which was hanging next to it of a female child. I think they are both beautiful and I did not want to buy one without the other. Apparently that is good luck. It has been in our home just a year and I am happy to have bought them. We did however, have a chip pan fire when I was a child but that was because my mum left it unattended while gossiping next door. I’m unsure if we still had the painting then but I doubt it had anything to do with the myth that probably sold a lot of newspapers!