Is there a savant inside all of us?

Savants have almost super-human abilities in art, music or memory – and not all are born that way. But is severe head trauma the only way to become a ‘sudden savant’

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On Southport’s stately seafront, the opening of a new art exhibition is drawing a late summer crowd. Long and unusually complex in the planning, it features the paintings of Tommy McHugh, an ex-builder from nearby Liverpool whose work has attracted worldwide attention.

Despite the appreciative buzz, Tommy, unfortunately, can’t be present. I later find him in the intensive care unit of a hospital on the Wirral, where he has been taken with acute pneumonia. A few weeks later he is dead. The redoubtable, 62 year-old latecomer to the world of art had been plagued with illness for some time, but harboured mixed feelings about his afflictions. It was after a near-fatal stroke, 11 years ago, that he discovered – to no one’s greater surprise than his own – that he could paint.

And paint not just as an occasional pleasure, but with a furious, obsessive exactness that took over his life and produced a stream of acclaimed works. Psychologists, who looked at his case, considered him to be one of the world’s foremost examples of “sudden savant syndrome” – a rare, barely-understood phenomenon whereby damage to the brain somehow unlocks a hidden talent.

There are so few confirmed cases — perhaps 30 in the world – that plausible explanations are hard to come by. Take Orlando Serrell, a 44-year-old from Virginia who was hit on the head by a baseball as a boy, and later found he could do complicated calculations and remember the precise weather conditions of any given day of the year.

Or Tony Cicoria. An orthopaedic surgeon from New York State, Dr Cicoria was struck by lightning in 1994 as he chatted to his mother from an outdoor telephone booth. Within weeks he became obsessed with classical piano music and a few years later — despite no previous interest in music beyond listening to rock songs – he made his public debut as a pianist and composer in a solo recital.