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ARTIST CD SERIES
STUDIO ARTS
CHARLES
BLACKMAN
Born 1928
4cats Gallery
269 Johnston Street, Abbotsford, Victoria 3067.
Telephone: 03 94177 422 Fax: 03 94177 608.
www.4cats.com.au. grant@4cats.com.au
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
11
26
44
FORMAL REFERENCES
47
This publication has been written by Therese Grant and Philip Grant, directors of 4cats Gallery, Melbourne as a resource
document for Year 12 Studio Arts students. Therese Grant has 14 years senior teaching experience and she is also a practicing
artist. She holds a Bachelor of Education (Visual Arts) and a Master of Education (Visual Arts) both from University of
Melbourne. Therese has been a director of 4cats Gallery since 2002. Philip Grant established 4cats Gallery in 2000. 4cats Gallery
operates as a commercial gallery. He has had extensive experience in public sector management, including arts facilities and
programs. He has a Bachelor of Arts (art history), Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws (Copyright) all from the University of
Melbourne. We appreciate the ongoing support of our Editor Helen Gilligan. 4cats Gallery.
This publication is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any
process without prior written permission from 4cats Gallery.
4cats Gallery
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
INTRODUCTION
This Studio Arts education CD provides the student with an overview of the life and
work of Australian artist Charles Blackman. Information contained in this CD is
designed specifically to address the criteria set out in the Victorian Curriculum and
Assessment Authority Study Design. The Study Design for VCE Studio Arts requires
a student to study art works that have been made by artists in more than one
historical or cultural context. Charles Blackman has produced his significant works
from the 1950s to the present, predominantly in Australia.
The Studio Arts CD begins with an outline of the personal life of the artist and we
have called this the Life Story. This is an excellent way to introduce the student to
the life of Charles Blackman. We have provided the student with a brief overview of
some of the achievements, people and significant features in Charles Blackmans life
which have impacted on the production of his art works.
Following the life story we have collected a number of responses regarding the
artists work which we have called Reaction of the Art World to Blackmans Art
Work. This is an interesting chapter as it includes some of the views shared by art
critics and a general overview of the worlds reaction to Blackmans work. Some
artists create enormous reaction whilst others are less controversial. This chapter is
an interesting study not only of the individual artist but also because it demonstrates
how the art world and public interact and respond to different artists and why. It can
act as a teaching tool to encourage discussion and expand a students view of
Blackmans life and work.
Chapter Three presents the main features present in Blackmans work and is called,
The Main Features of Charles Blackmans Art Work. This chapter provides the
student with a general summary of the information required to learn about an artists
work, such as the aesthetic qualities, the usage of materials and techniques, the
subject matter and themes of the work, the development of a distinctive style, artistic
influences and the relevance of historical and cultural contexts on the production of
the work. We call these features, key discussion points. The Study Design also
includes New Technology as a discussion point. However, we do not believe this is
appropriate for the individual study of Charles Blackmans work. A discussion of new
technology is appropriate only when the artist is breaking new ground with
technology.
In Chapter Four Analysis of 2 Selected Art Works using the Key Discussion Points
we study two of Blackmans art works and apply four key discussion points to each
work. This provides the student with an insight into how different key discussion
points can be applied to the same art work. This chapter helps a student learn what
is relevant to discuss under each point and the type of language and material they
4cats Gallery
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
SHAPCOTT, Thomas
4cats Gallery
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
In 1989 he married his third wife Victoria Bower and they had a son, Axiom, born in
1990. Bower left Blackman in 1993. A major retrospective exhibition of Blackmans
work, Schoolgirls and Angels was held in 1993 at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Since the early 1990s, Blackman has suffered from Korsakoff's syndrome, a memory
disorder associated with alcoholism. Symptoms of this condition include amnesia,
attention deficit and failing vision. Another disturbing symptom is that people with
Korsakoff's will fill in the gaps in memory with fabricated or imagined information.
They will talk quite lucidly on a subject believing they are telling the truth, only for the
"truth" to change next time they tell the same story. In 1994 Blackman suffered a
near fatal stroke and required permanent care.
Since 1994 Blackman has had two carers, Fred OBrien and Ronnie Morrison, who
take it in turn to look after him. They have succeeded in weaning Blackman off
alcohol and Blackman still draws although he is unable to paint. His finances are
administered through the Blackman Trust set up by his friends to ensure that his
artistic legacy would not be completely squandered. It is interesting to note that
whilst Blackmans paintings commonly sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars he
does not own any originals of his own famous paintings. He once commented that
he was too poor to own a Blackman. Blackman is a generous man and was known
for giving away his paintings or selling them at a discounted price. Blackman is the
classic case of an artist who would benefit from an artist resale royalty scheme in
Australia. This proposed scheme (although it is not law yet) would ensure that artists
receive a small percentage (eg 5%) of the sale price every time their art works were
resold. Blackmans friend Nadine Amadio says It is immoral that an art dealer can
sell an original Blackman for $300,000 when the artist may have only received 5
guineas when he first painted it.
For services to art, Charles Blackman was awarded the OBE and the Queens
Jubilee Medal. Sydney University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
In 2006, the National Gallery of Victoria, held a retrospective exhibition of
Blackmans Alice in Wonderland series of paintings. This exhibition celebrated the
50th anniversary of the series.
Blackman is now 78 and lives in Sydney.
4cats Gallery
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
the Schoolgirls and Angels retrospective exhibition in 1993 and Alice in Wonderland
2006 where specific works from Blackmans most successful periods were shown
together.
Contemporary art critics are divided in their opinion of Blackmans work. Christopher
Allen in his book Art in Australia says that although Blackmans work is held in high
regard by many, to my mind it is thin and cloying. At any rate, his pictures of little
girls with flowers certainly belong to a register of personal sentimental experience,
not to the social domain.
Robert Nelson, art critic for the Age, in reviewing the Alice in Wonderland exhibition
in 2006 said that:
Blackmans Alice is part Modigliani, part Picasso. The style is similar to Sidney
Nolan and Arthur Boyd and is the nave art that passed for modernism in the 1940s
and '50s, where all expression - if there is any - is the product of style or mannerism
rather than observation of a dramatic instant.
In 2006, Alices Journey 1957, one of the paintings from the Alice in Wonderland
series was sold at Sothebys Auction House for a record price $1.02 million. This
was more than double the previous record for a Blackman work.
Blackmans work is held by the National Gallery of Australia and all state art galleries
in Australia. It has also been collected extensively in the UK, the USA and Japan.
Blackmans work is extensively represented in corporate and private collections such
as the Reserve Bank of Australia Collection and the Kerry Stokes Collection.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
MAIN
FEATURES
OF
CHARLES
In this chapter we will deal with the following features of Charles Blackmans art
work.
New technology is not discussed as a main feature in the work of Charles Blackman
as this key discussion point is not appropriate to the work of Blackman.
THE MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES USED BY CHARLES BLACKMAN
Blackmans two main art forms are drawing and painting. Blackman largely uses
pencil, charcoal and ink washes and occasionally pastel in his drawings. He
generally draws on paper and occasionally on board.
In his painting Blackman primarily used a form of composition board or canvas.
Composition board is an artificially made product which is made by compacting
wood pulp and drying it to create a smooth hard wood surface. Common names for
composition board include board, hardboard, masonite, chip board, particle board
and more recently MDF or form wood. Both paintings discussed in this publication
were completed on composition board.
He uses a range of mediums for painting including traditional artists oils, oil based
enamel paint, acrylic paint, tempera and combinations of these mediums.
Tempera is basically the product of mixing egg yolks, egg whites and casein with oil
or enamel paints or gums and waxes to create a painting medium that has special
qualities. Curator, Geoffrey Smith says that Blackman created his own tempera and
learnt this from the textbook The Materials of the Artist and their Use in Painting with
Notes on the Techniques by Old Masters (1934) written by the German expert,
Professor Max Doerner. According to Doerner, tempera is particularly effective as a
medium on board. Tempera highlights light and is excellent for tonal modelling.
Blackman used tempera primarily to apply a white base which he would then paint
over and also to apply white highlights to his paintings. To create a white tempera
he would have mixed egg whites, egg yolks and casein (a form of milk protein) with
white enamel or oil paint.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
Geoffrey Smith says that Blackmans use of tempera mixtures allowed greater
freedom in his painting techniques. He quotes Blackman who said
Tempera has a lot to do with the immediacy of the paintings. Tempera acts as a
catalyst with enamel and as they dry at varying speeds they might flow into each
other. Explosions might erupt. The discovery of this medium allowed me to work
with spontaneity and seize the evocative power of the image as it opened up
The brushes that Blackman used for his painting included ordinary artist brushes as
well as flat edged brushes used by commercial household painters. Blackman often
created line by scratching the wet paint with the point of the brush handle. Paint
application varies from thin washes to heavy impasto. In some paintings Blackman
has applied so much paint that it has dribbled into neighbouring colours. Blackman is
known for his speed of painting and his desire for quick compositions and his brush
stokes are often rough and thinly painted. Blackman tended to block in large areas of
colour very speedily. Blackman was generally not guided by preparatory sketches
and let the act of final painting resolve the work.
THE MAIN SUBJECT MATTER, IDEAS AND THEMES AND INFLUENCES THAT
CHARLES BLACKMAN EXPRESSES IN HIS ART WORK
Blackman is primarily a figurative drawer and painter. Most of his drawings and
paintings consist of one or more human figures. Arts writer Walter Granek says;
Centred around themes of childhood, femininity, blindness and solitude, Blackmans
evocative imagery exposes an undercurrent of the uncertain and anxious, the
perplexed and fearful, the inquisitive and hopeful artist on the darker side of light
The most significant influence on Blackmans early career was his wife Barbara
Blackman. Felicity St John Moore says that Barbaras intelligence and ordered
literary mind deepened Blackmans experience of literature. Blackman had no higher
education in the arts. According to Felicity St John Moore, an arts writer who has
written several publications about Blackman, Blackman taught himself by devouring
and digesting everything at hand: art books, magazines, prints, illustrations, modern
literature and other peoples art. Barbaras blindness also deeply affected the way
Blackman painted. By circumstance he was forced to go into her unseeing world. He
was much more in tune with hearing information rather than seeing it and more in
tune with touch and feeling. Blackman says
My sort of painting isnt sparked off directly by visual things Its sparked off by
what I feel about something perhaps in a book.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
Walter Granek says that in his formative years 1950 to 1956, Blackman would often
read to Barbara, mainly literature by French authors, with the emphasis on
adolescent eroticism.
One such author who had a significant influence on Blackmans career was the
French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). At fifteen Rimbaud began his short writing
career which only lasted five years. Rimbauds poems were aggressive and he
pushed the idea that a poet or artist must be true to themselves and break down the
restraints and controls on personality. Felicity St John Moore says that Rimbaud was
important for Blackman because Rimbaud was very interested in childhood
memories and adolescence where the possibilities for good and evil are the greatest.
Blackman related to the fact that Rimbaud encouraged the artist to reach into their
sub conscious minds and go beyond the normal limits.
The following is a broad outline of the subject matter used by Blackman in his more
famous works.
Schoolgirls
In the early 1950s Blackman started painting an almost
generic schoolgirl wearing a school uniform and a mushroom shaped hat who is
usually depicted in situations of vulnerability. She is young or maybe on the verge of
puberty, sometimes faceless. She is a figure of threatened innocence, furtively
scurrying from, or being hemmed in by an environment of foreboding. Blackmans
biographer Thomas Shapcott in The Art of Charles Blackman, describes the
schoolgirls as; haunted, inward, dangerously clumsy and stylised inventions which
became a source of power and reference that was to be pivotal in the young artists
career.
Blackman has said that he saw in the lonely vulnerable little schoolgirls he would see
around Melbourne, a symbol for his own sense of loneliness and isolation at the
time.
A very significant artistic influence on the development of Blackmans schoolgirls
was French painter and lithographer Odilon Redon (1840-1916). Redon was an early
precursor to Surrealism, with his mysterious evocations of a dream world. Redon's
work represents an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche. He wanted to
"place the visible at the service of the invisible". His earlier work is filled with strange
and unrelated objects such as spiders and hot air balloons made of a human eye.
His aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
Felicity St John Moore says that Redons work influenced Blackman to transform
objects and animals into human form and people into animals. She says that the
faces of Blackmans schoolgirls often resemble the smiling spider in Redons
drawings and their legs are angular and insect like. The ballooning hats of the school
girls move toward infinity like the strange eye balloon of Redon. Redons later works
involving women with flowers were also influential on Blackmans girls with flowers
works.
Thomas Shapcott quotes Blackman who refers to the powerful influence that
Australian poet John Shaw Neilson (1872-1942) had upon the development of the
schoolgirl series.
It wasnt until I started painting schoolgirls that Sunday Reed showed me John
Shaw Neilsons poetry about schoolgirls. They were full of a kinship, the sort of thing
that I was painting fitted in with it perfectly.
John Shaw Neilson was semi blind and so Blackman had an obvious affinity with this
condition. Although Neilson was semi-blind, he invoked strong visual imagery in his
poetry by using descriptions of colour, which also had an emotional meaning as well.
Blackman was also drawn to the sense of lost innocence of girlhood which often
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
Alice In Wonderland
In 1956 Blackman first heard the story of Alice in
Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. Barbara Blackman was listening to it
on a talking book for the blind. Although Blackman had heard mention of the story he
did not actually know what it was about.
The story centres on the seven-year-old Alice, who falls asleep in a meadow, and
dreams that she plunges down a rabbit hole following a white rabbit in a waistcoat.
She finds herself first too large and then too small. She meets strange characters
such as Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the King and Queen of
Hearts. She experiences bizarre adventures and tries to reason in numerous
discussions that do not follow the daylight logic. Finally she loses her temper,
bringing down this dream world and wakes up.
Blackman produced 46 paintings dealing with Alice in Wonderland in a 9 month
period in 1956/1957. They are not illustrations of the story of Alice's journey as such,
but rather his reaction to hearing the story. Most of the paintings feature Alice and
the white rabbit together and draw heavily on the theme of cups and teapots from
the mad hatters tea party.
Barbara Blackman says that Blackman was absolutely struck by it, by the whole
absurdity of it. The brilliant, beautiful image-filled absurdity of the whole book."
Blackman says
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
"Alice is always that wonderful person who opens the door and takes you with your
mind wherever she goes. You could say its total Surrealism. It's more real than the
life you're actually living.My paintings are all about that surreality, not necessarily
about the actual illustration of the story."
Thomas Shapcott says that Blackmans love of Surrealism was released by Alice.
He says that in these paintings Blackman found complete expression for his own
zany, fun loving brand of logic in a world where teapots and teacups have a life of
their own and where flowers become more expressive than faces. At the same time
as painting Alice in the Boat 1956, (discussed in detail later) Blackman was working
as a night waiter and he was surrounded nightly by the objects that appeared in the
Alice paintings, such as plates, tea cups and table cloths.
Felicity St John Moore says that Blackman was struck by the parallel between Alice
and Barbara, including Barbaras own sense of spatial disorientation due to her
blindness. She says that the Alice series contains a number of Surrealistic motifs
from the Surrealist painters, such as Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst
that Blackman admired. For example in The White Tablecloth 1956, Blackman has
appropriated the image of a fruit dish and a half hidden face from Salvador Dalis
Apparition of a face and fruit dish on a beach 1938.
St John Moore says that Alice is the symbol for Barbara and the white rabbit the
symbol for Blackman. The ever present bouquet of flowers is a symbol of creation
and sex as Barbara was pregnant during the time he painted the Alice series.
In 2004 a controversy was created when Janine Burke, in her book The Heart
Garden, claimed that Sunday Reed was Blackmans inspiration for Alice. The
controversy was reported by Susan Wyndham in the Age in 2004. The Heart Garden
is a biography of Sunday Reed. Burke says that Alice looks like Sunday Reed. It
looks like her with the big blue eyes, the long face, the blonde hair and the flowers,
which was always Sunday's emblem. Barbara Blackman said: "Why would she
want to go out on this limb? I think it's a pretty thin limb. Charles never used anybody
as his model, but I was around him all the time. I was his Alice. I was his image." Art
historian and former NGA director Betty Churcher insists the paintings depict the
young Barbara Blackman with sightless eyes. "They're portraits of Barbara. If you
miss that, you miss a lot about the paintings."
Thomas Shapcott says that the white rabbit is;
Blackmans alter ego, the mischievous figure that mocks and disturbs the
solemnity of Alice in her pretend grown up hostess duties. The irreverent rabbit
keeps popping up at various times in Blackmans later career , like some necessary
spirit of disorder and male fun in a world largely enclosed in the powerful poetry of
the female mysteries.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
The Age Art critic, Robert Nelson, writing in 2006 says that
Like the flying cards in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland that rise eerily and
inexplicably from their deck, the figure of Alice pops up in Charles Blackman's
paintings with a sinister energy. It's the head, in particular, hoisted above a
disproportionate ithyphallic neck, that looks so kooky and anomalous: this blonde,
erectile unit, sometimes mounted on a small body, is cast with vacant gaze among
flowers, airborne teacups, self-pouring teapots and animals, familiar as images but
wayward and wanton in their behaviour. Among a chaotic pitter-patter of details and
noisy paint, Alice's head is schematised as a nicely defined tonal egg with pursed
lips, generally riding on the same angle as that set by the stiff shaft of the neck. It
inevitably gives Blackman's Alice a hypnotically goofy look.
Gary Crew, arts reviewer for the Age in 2006 said:
The real beauty of these images is that Blackman's Alice is a human being. She is
capable of being, or becoming, or presenting as, a multiplicity of different personas.
As we all are. Especially in dream. Blackman's Alice is at once a girl and a woman.
She may be frightened, happy, bored, superior or downright cranky.
At the time he painted the Alice paintings Blackman was spending a lot of time with
John Perceval on outdoor painting excursions, particularly to Williamstown.
Blackman admired the work and artistic practises of John Perceval, in particular the
way Perceval could paint in a free and spontaneous way. Blackman says
My Alice paintings were probably the freest paintings that Ive painted. Im not
talking about the images Im talking about the actual way of painting. He was a
wonderfully ecstatic painter, John Perceval, very free and very beautiful. .. The thing
about the Alice paintings is that I would have the experience of watching John and
take that home with me in a kind of way act it out. Its as if I had adopted part of
his nature and this helped to loosen the problems I had always had, by making the
form reflect my inner feelings.
As discussed above, French poet Arthur Rimbaud was a very strong influence on the
development of Blackmans work. One of Rimbauds most famous poems is Le
Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat). Felicity St John Moore refers to this poem as
partial inspiration for the visual imagery created by Blackman in the painting Alice in
the Boat 1956 which is discussed in detail later in this publication. The poem
describes the journey of Rimbaud as a young sailor in a boat. Rimbaud uses the
open sea as a symbol for the freedom he seeks. He experiences the joys of floating
like an aimless cork, of watching amazing waves and moonlit nights on the sea and
wonderful sea creatures. But as he journeys on in the sea he realises he cannot be
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
alone in the sea left to ponder endlessly about his lost love and the horrors of the
world.
Beach Scenes
Blackman had a long fascination with Australian beach
culture. Some of his earliest exhibited works were a drawing of a contorted swimmer
off St Kilda Pier, The Swimmer 1952 and a painting of a man with grotesque blind
eyes and short limbs floating off St Kilda pier called The Floating Man 1952. The
Alice painting, Alice in the Boat 1956 was partly based on observation from one of
Blackmans many drawing expeditions at Williamstown to observe the bay and boat
life. Blackman painted a number of works around lifesavers and the semi heroic
culture of the life saving club, such as Lifesavers Bondi 1967. Thomas Shapcott
says these works are significant to Blackman because he starts to explore the
imagery of the crowd which he had rarely done before. The painting Evening at
Ettalong 1969 contains 17 figures fishing, playing and exercising on the beach.
Shapcott says,
The sunny hedonism of Sydney pervades these works, the child images are closer
to the cut out energies of Matisse than to the fraught dreamings of earlier works.
Blackmans beach paintings have been quietly documenting in a resonant and
memorable way whole territories of Australian beach life that with hindsight we can
recognize as a notably vivid contribution to this important aspect of Australian life.
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Orpheus
In 1983 Blackman completed a series of work called the
Orpheus paintings. These paintings were an extension of a series of drawings he
had completed for the book, Orpheus-the song of forever, written by his friend
Nadine Amadio. According to mythology, Orpheus was the son of Apollo. He was a
poet and musician and it was said that Orpheus could play the lyre so well that he
could charm wild beasts and even make trees and rocks move with his music.
Amadios book is a fairy tale about a contemporary Orpheus which stresses the
theme of the eternal struggle of the creative spirit. The Orpheus paintings consist of
large scale figures of Orpheus.
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Born 1928
tones. Blackman often painted dark lines around figures. This often emphasises the
cut out, child like quality of the figure against the background colours. This occurs in
the Schoolgirl at Kooyong 1953 which is discussed later. Light and dark contrasts
are used extensively by Blackman in the schoolgirl series which emphasise the
contrast between innocence and danger and goodness and evil. In Schoolgirl at
Kooyong 1953 the predominant colours are azure blue and a contrasting rose pink.
Blue represents masculinity and aggression and pink suggests innocent girlish
femininity. Felicity St John Moore says that the faces of Blackman figures are often
carved out in shadow.
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The schoolgirl pictures had a lot to do with fear: A lot to do with my isolation as a
person and my quite paranoid fears of loneliness. These images are very obsessive
with a kind of Freudian anguish.
Arts writer, Felicity St John Moore in referring to the Schoolgirl series says that:
Feelings such as guilt, fear, sexuality and violence are represented voyeuristically
through the adolescent and metamorphic (mushroom hatted) figures of anonymous
schoolgirls located in timeless settings. Their school uniforms - aside from their real
life origin in the Hawthorn environment - evoke ambiguity and androgyny that are the
stuff of symbolist and Surrealist art and literature
Blackman is a small man and Felicity St John Moore makes frequent reference to his
small build as a cause of masculine anxiety for him. The fact that he was partly
reliant on Barbaras income at this time would not have done a lot for his male pride.
As indicated above, artists were outsiders in Melbourne society in the 1950s and he
was struggling to establish himself as an artist at this time. Barbaras blindness
would also have caused them difficulties. It is no wonder that Blackman was feeling
alone and vulnerable at this time.
In 1956 when the Alice paintings were started by Blackman he was working as a
night waiter. Blackman says that; I went to work in a restaurant at 5PM that finished
at 12 and then came home and my head was full of spinning plates and teacups and
Barbara would say I brought the rabbit into the restaurant at night and it would help
me do the work and the next day I would paint it all. The restaurant came into my
paintings. For example in Alice Tall 1956, Alice is painted wearing an apron worn
by the waitresses at the restaurant. Felicity St John Moore says that in1956
restaurants were prohibited from serving wine or alcohol. Accordingly to get around
this, restaurants would serve alcohol in tea or coffee cups. According to St John
Moore, in some of the Alice paintings the teacups have a wine red interior which she
says is Blackman referring to prohibition. When the Olympic Games were being held
in Melbourne in 1956, the normal prohibition on restaurants serving wine was
relaxed. In the painting The White Tablecloth 1956, the red wine is pouring itself
into a wine glass, which suggests this freedom to serve alcohol that was probably
occurring in the restaurant at the time this painting was completed.
At the time Blackman was painting the Alice paintings Barbara Blackman was
pregnant with their first child. It was a time of great change for the Blackmans
because Barbara had to give up her job as a life model which strained the family
finances. Blackman refers to Barbaras pregnancy in several ways in the Alice
paintings. For example the appearance of an Alice in Wonderland type medicine
bottle refers to the indigestion Barbara suffered during pregnancy and the fact that it
made her burp. Felicity St John Moore says that in Blackmans Alice paintings, the
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vase of flowers symbolises the act of creation, fertility and sexual desire between
Blackman and Barbara.
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cracks in the footpath. In the row of ascending picket shapes Blackman has inserted
a section of white curly decorative lines to represent a lattice style gate.
The girl is positioned in front of the picket shapes which are about the height of the
girls waist. The way Blackman has angled the pickets on a 45 degree plane means
that as the viewer we get the sensation that we are looking at the girl from a side
frontal position as if we are about to pass her in a car or tram going in the opposite
direction. The viewer is in an elevated position because we cannot see the bottom of
her feet which suggests that this is a view of the girl from a tram or big car. It might
also suggest a side long glance at the girl from a much taller pedestrian going in the
opposite direction of the girl.
In the immediate space behind the ascending pickets, Blackman has painted plant
and flower shapes to represent what look like pink roses.
In the centre ground behind the girl, the picket fence and the rosebushes, Blackman
has painted a series of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines and bands of solid
colour to create the impression of the hexagonal shaped (six sided) Kooyong tennis
stadium. The stadium is empty of people and suggests loneliness and desolation.
Beyond the imposing shape of the stadium is a dry, lonely looking landscape with
only a few trees. Behind this is a solidly painted bright blue horizon with several
phallic shaped buildings silhouetted against the horizon.
Blackman was inspired to paint schoolgirls because he saw them as symbols of
vulnerability and innocence. He felt that the schoolgirl image paralleled his own
experiences of aloneness and vulnerability. He would often see them around the
Hawthorn area where he lived catching trams or walking to school. The domestic
cosy feel of the lattice fence and the sweet feminine feel of the roses in the
foreground matches the girls inward innocent composure. This contrasts heavily
with the masculine geometry of the stadium and the big wide dangerous world on
the open plains. The fact that the viewer is looking at the girl from the perspective of
perhaps a passing tram or perhaps as a passing pedestrian gives the viewer a
sense of danger. Because of her downward face and thoughtful pose, Blackman
perhaps is suggesting that the girl is not aware of who is watching her and is
ignorant of the dangers that could be lurking.
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Born 1928
cracks for fear that evil will follow. The schoolgirl is looking down at the ground and
perhaps she is trying to avoid standing on the cracks. Blackman is symbolising that
there is more danger for her in the real world. The curly lines of the lattice gate on
first glance seem to suggest domesticity and comfort. However, they could also
represent danger to the girl if she passed through the gate into the bigger world. The
curly tendril like shapes of the rose bush suggests eroticism. The pink roses dotted
along the fence look suspiciously like the apple from the Garden of Eden which Eve
plucked for Adam and for which they were cast out. Perhaps this symbolises that
there are many temptations for the innocent girl in this evil world and the girl could
easily succumb to these by simply plucking a rose as she passes by. It is not clear
from the painting, but it is possible that the girl is actually clasping a rose in her hand
and looking down at it.
In the centre ground, Blackman has painted a series of horizontal, vertical and
diagonal lines and bands of solid colour to create the impression of the hexagonal
shaped (six sided) Kooyong tennis stadium. This structure dominates most of the
centre of the painting. Blackman creates the illusion that the viewer is in an elevated
position (aerial perspective) and can partly see the inside of the stadium and the
centre court, with its tiered bench seating. The stadium is painted in blue for the
walls and supports of the stadium and rose pinks for the bench seating. The stadium
is empty of people and suggests loneliness and desolation.
Some of the buildings silhouetted on the horizon have a menacing phallic shape. In
particular one building that is painted in pink looks very much like an erect penis.
This building as a phallic symbol could represent the dangers of lurking male
sexuality to an innocent virginal young schoolgirl.
Blackman has relied heavily on the concept of overlapping of objects in this painting
to provide the strong sense of depth of space that appears. Overlapping occurs
when we perceive objects overlapping other objects as closer than the covered
object. In this painting the girl overlaps the fence, the fence overlaps the roses, the
roses overlap the stadium and the stadium overlaps the background.
The way Blackman has painted this composition means that as the viewer we get
the sensation that we are looking at the girl from a side frontal position as if we are
about to pass her in a car or tram going in the opposite direction. It might also
suggest a side long glance at the girl from a much taller pedestrian going in the
opposite direction of the girl along the footpath. This perspective may symbolise
male voyeurism. Because of her downward face and thoughtful pose, Blackman
perhaps is suggesting that the girl is not aware of who is watching her and is
ignorant of the dangers that could be lurking.
Blackmans art is described as Expressionistic because the image of reality is
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
Blackman appears to have applied a wash in several parts of this painting. He would
probably have diluted the paint mixture with turpentine. This effect appears in the
foliage of one of the trees on the horizon and in some of the foliage of the rose bush
and in the shadows the rosebush is casting on the picket fence.
In Schoolgirl at Kooyong Blackman shows his skills as a tonal painter. In virtually
all of the composition except for the sky Blackman has applied tone to create form
and to create the harsh biting light of the sun. Blackmans use of tone is relatively
rough and he has generally applied the paint in loose quick strokes. Despite his
loose Expressionistic style of painting, Blackman has succeeded in creating a
striking contrast between the childlike, inward looking innocence of the girl and the
masculine hardness of the wider world.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
colour in a semi abstract way. The girls rose pink skin tone matches the colour in
much of the foreground and background objects. In an Expressionistic manner
Blackman has painted Schoolgirl at Kooyong in a rough and loose manner.
Blackmans art often borrows from Surrealist influences. The shape and form of the
schoolgirl is exaggerated from reality. The schoolgirl has stick like legs and arms and
an enlarged head. Her face is rounded and her mouth just a tiny line. The girls hat is
exaggerated in size. Blackman was influenced by French artist Odilon Redon.
Felicity St John Moore says that Redons work influenced Blackman to transform
objects and animals into human form and people into animals. She says that the
faces of Blackmans schoolgirls often resemble the smiling spider in Redons
drawings and their legs are angular and insect like. This is indeed the case with the
schoolgirl in Schoolgirl at Kooyong 1953. St John Moore also says that the
ballooning hats of the school girls are like the strange eye balloon of Redon.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
TITLE:
DATE:
MEDIA:
DIMENSIONS:
COLLECTION:
Born 1928
Alice in the Boat
1956
Tempera & oil based enamel on hardboard
120.6 x 132.2 cm
Private Collection
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
To the right of the bottle sits Alice with a long neck, impassive eyes and long straight
yellow hair. She is only visible in the boat from the neck up. Her face is painted in a
pink/grey tone and she has a very long flat nose with a slash of deep red for lips. Her
large eyes are heavily lidded in a blue/black eyeliner. Art critic Robert Nelson
describes Alice as having a hypnotically goofy look with her disproportionately long
neck and staring blank eyes. Propped under Alices neck at the stern of the boat is a
bright blue teacup which leans precariously along the bow of the boat as if it is about
to fall. Blackman has manipulated the scale and the positioning of the objects in this
painting to give it a dreamy Surrealistic feel.
The boat casts a strangely shaped green reflection in the water in the foreground.
Felicity St John Moore says that the boat is a white tub with an apron of green
reflection that keeps the boat afloat and unknown gulfs at bay. In the immediate
foreground Blackman has loosely painted strokes of colour to represent the
reflections in the water cast by the figures in the boat.
At the time Blackman painted Alice in the Boat, Barbara Blackman was pregnant
with their first child. She was also legally blind. Alices blank staring eyes in Alice in
the Boat parallel Barbaras blindness. In all the Alice paintings Alice represents
Barbara. Barbara Blackman was also in hospital with a thrombosis on her leg during
the time Alice in the Boat was painted. Perhaps the boat in Alice in the Boat is
Blackmans way of liberating Barbara from her inability to move at this time. Arts
writer Felicity St John Moore says that the objects in the boat such as the teapot with
the nipple spout and the vase of bright flowers all represent sexuality, fertility and the
nurturing of the new baby. The medicine bottle represents the changing shape of
Barbaras pregnant body and is a direct reference to the medicine bottle in Alice in
Wonderland where Alice drank from it and changed size. The white rabbit in the boat
with its long ears represents Blackman. As Blackmans biographer Thomas Shapcott
says, the white rabbit is Blackmans alter ego, the mischievous figure that mocks
and disturbs the solemnity of Alice in her pretend grown up hostess duties.
Alice in the Boat has a gentle Surrealistic quality. The sea is calm and the sky
bright. Yet there is an element of danger or apprehension as if at any moment a
storm could brew up and capsize the rudderless little boat. The Blackmans were in a
period of change when Alice in the Boat was painted. The impending birth of their
first child meant change for the Blackmans relationship. It also meant possible
financial hardships. Barbara had previously worked as an artists model, but with her
pregnancy she stopped this. This meant greater pressures on the family finances.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
describes the boat floating in limpid water under the pure and innocent sky.
Shape is an important aesthetic quality in Alice in the Boat. Blackman uses a series
of repeated shapes and objects in the Alice paintings to symbolise meaning. The
enlarged head and long neck of Alice symbolises Barbara Blackman. The size and
shape of her head is out of proportion to her torso. The white rabbit with his long
shaped ears represents Charles Blackman. The vase in the centre of the
composition is shaped like a womans torso. Felicity St John Moore says that in
Blackmans Alice paintings, the vase of flowers symbolises the act of creation,
fertility and sexual desire between Blackman and Barbara. The shape of the teapot
varies in the Alice paintings. In Alice in the Boat the black/brown teapot looks round
and feminine with a red nipple spout spurting out a trail of white matter. Felicity St
John Moore says this symbolises breast milk and the nurturing of the new baby. The
brown coloured container with the orange label is shaped like an old fashioned
medicine bottle. Felicity St John Moore says that the medicine bottle symbolises
change. In the Alice in Wonderland story Alice drinks from the bottle and grows
smaller and then larger. This is a direct symbolic reference to the change in Barbara
Blackmans body shape due to her pregnancy. The boat is shaped like an inverted
table cloth. The table cloth in many of the Alice paintings is used as device on which
to play out the relevant scene. The mass of flowers in the vases contrasts with the
solid shapes of the figures and objects in the boat and becomes a focal point.
Blackman has created the visual illusion of depth in Alice in the Boat in several
ways. Firstly the tonal changes between the water and the sky create an imaginary
horizon line and the feel of an endless sea. Secondly Blackman has angled the
planes of the boat to create the visual illusion that we are looking across at the boat
from a position about halfway between the rear and the side of the boat.
Blackman has created a sense of movement in this work. The sensation of
movement is related to floating and drifting. Blackman has positioned the teapot, the
vase of flowers, the medicine bottle and the cup as if they are floating within the boat
and ready to take off at any moment. This gives Alice in the Boat a dreamy
Surrealistic feel. The glassy effect of the water created by tone and the painted
reflections suggests the boat is floating aimlessly on the sea. Blackman has not
painted a rudder on the boat and this heightens the sensation of aimless floating.
Whilst Alice in the Boat displays symmetrical balance in terms of the positioning of
objects within the composition, there is an unsettling, floating sensation about the
work which negates a sense of balance or solidity.
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
The Reeds had an extensive library which gave Blackman access to the French
writers he was fond of such as Rimbaud. The poem the Drunken Boat by Rimbaud is
the partial inspiration for Alice in the Boat 1956. Sunday Reed took an active
interest in the materials and techniques Blackman was using as well as the subject
matter of his works. The Reeds directly encouraged Blackman to paint narrative
works such as the Alice paintings. On a practical level the Reeds provided fresh
eggs for Blackmans tempera that he used in the Alice paintings.
In 2004 author Janine Burke, in her book The Heart Garden, claimed that Sunday
Reed was Blackmans inspiration for Alice. Burke said that Alice looked like Sunday
Reed. It looks like her with the big blue eyes, the long face, the blonde hair and the
flowers, which was always Sunday's emblem. The claim was hotly refuted by
Barbara Blackman. She said Charles never used anybody as his model, but I was
around him all the time. I was his Alice. I was his image." Art historian and former
NGA director Betty Churcher said "They're portraits of Barbara. If you miss that, you
miss a lot about the paintings."
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
as Australian poet John Shaw Neilson who wrote poetry about young girls and the
eventual loss of innocence as they progressed to adulthood. French artist Odilon
Redon was influential in Blackman creating the spidery stick insect look of his
schoolgirls.
Blackman is also famous for his use of the story and characters from Lewis Carrolls
story Alice in Wonderland. In the 46 paintings completed in 1956 and 1957,
Blackman featured as subject matter, Alice, the white rabbit and many other
characters from the story. He also used Alice and the white rabbit in work he created
after this.
The enamel and tempera on canvas painting Alice in the Boat 1956, is a good
example of how Blackman used subjects from the Alice in Wonderland story to
express his feelings about his own life. The painting consists of a seascape scene
with a white open row boat placed centrally in the composition. Blackman says the
colours of the sky and sea in Alice in the Boat were inspired by the sea at
Williamstown where he would paint with his friend artist John Perceval. Sitting in the
boat is a white rabbit, a girl who is obviously Alice, a brown teapot, a blue vase full
of brightly coloured flowers, a medicine bottle and a large blue cup which are all
objects appropriated from the Alice in Wonderland story. The painting has a dreamy
Surrealistic feel to it and because the boat has no rudder or oars the occupants of
the boat are floating aimlessly.
Arts writer Felicity St John Moore says that in all the Alice paintings, the white rabbit
represents Blackman and Alice represents his first wife Barbara Blackman.
Blackman saw in the Alice story a parallel with his own life. Barbara was becoming
blind and like Alice she was often stumbling around in a strange unpredictable world
trying to get used to her blindness. Thomas Shapcott says that Blackman painted
himself as the white rabbit, because he was naughty and unpredictable. At the time
he painted Alice in the Boat, Blackman was working as a night waiter in a restaurant
and was inspired by real life tablecloths, cups and saucers that occur frequently in
the Alice in Wonderland story.
Barbara was pregnant with their first child when Alice in the Boat 1956, was painted
and Felicity St John Moore says that the bright flowers in a vase shaped like a
womans torso symbolise the pregnancy and the fertility between Blackman and
Barbara. The teapot has a pink nipple in its spout and is spurting out a white
substance which appears to be the milk Barbara will nurture their new baby with.
Blackman loved the poetry of French poet Arthur Rimbaud and the dreamy floating
aspect of Alice in the Boat was inspired directly by Rimbauds poem the Drunken
Boat. Blackman was also inspired by Surrealism. In the Alice in Wonderland story
teapots and cups could fly on their accord and this appealed to Blackmans
Surrealistic sensibilities. In Alice in the Boat, the medicine bottle is floating and the
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
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CHARLES BLACKMAN
Born 1928
FORMAL REFERENCES
BOOKS/CATALOGUES
AMADIO, Nadine
ALLEN, Christopher
BURKE, Janine
GRANEK, Walter
MATHEW, Ray
SHAPCOTT, Thomas
SMITH, Bernard
National
ARTICLES
CREW, Gary
MASLEN, Geoff
NELSON, Robert
SEXTON, Jennifer
WEBB, Penny
Charles Blackman
WYNDHAM, Susan
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