Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)
Coloured Rain, 2001
Charcoal and oil on canvas, 153 x 121.7cm (60¼ x 48'')
Signed; also signed and inscribed verso

Exhibited: Belfast, Ulster Museum, 'Basil...

Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)
Coloured Rain, 2001
Charcoal and oil on canvas, 153 x 121.7cm (60¼ x 48'')
Signed; also signed and inscribed verso

Exhibited: Belfast, Ulster Museum, 'Basil Blackshaw Paintings 2000-2002'

Literature: Eamonn Mallie (ed.), 'Blackshaw', pl.177, p.388.

 

Uniquely well regarded among his peers and by a wide public, Basil Blackshaw is a major, exceptional figure in modern Irish art history. To mark his 70th birthday in 2002, and aware that there had been a major retrospective seven years previously, SB Kennedy curated an exhibition of his recent work at the Ulster Museum, with the artist’s keen cooperation. Far from resting on his laurels, Blackshaw produced a superb, career-crowning show based on just two years’ work.

The paintings on view marked a shift into a late style of majestic austerity, with a pared-down, flawless palette and stark, flattened forms. This painting was part of that exhibition, as was its clear companion-piece, Coat, dated November 2000. The composition, a close-up, frontal view of a figure in a buttoned coat with arms outstretched, is shared by both paintings. One significant difference is the rain referred to in the title of the second. Blackshaw enlists charcoal to indicate a downpour in profuse diagonal strokes (the colour arrives as bursts of yellow and red). He also uses the charcoal to enhance the definition overall in a vibrant, lyrical work.

Born in Co Antrim, Blackshaw grew up in a rural world of horses and dogs – his father was a horse-trainer – and remained a country-dweller all his life. Both parents were supportive of his precocious artistic talent and he was accepted at art college aged just 16. His 1953 painting, The Field, is a work of amazing maturity indicative of his subsequent direction. It established his distinctive mode of spare, informal realism, rooted in his immediate life and surroundings: the local landscape, closely observed horses, dogs and other animals, the human figure (usually his long-term model, Jude Stevens) and many fine portraits, with Cézanne and Giacometti as important influences. As one observer noted, the spontaneity of his work captures the excitement of seeing something for the first time.

 

Aidan Dunne
August 2021

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