Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)

Three Sisters (1981)

Oil on canvas, 51 x 61cm (20 x 24'')
Signed

 

Provenance: The collection of Brian and Anne Friel

 

Exhibited: Basil Blackshaw...

Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)

Three Sisters (1981)

Oil on canvas, 51 x 61cm (20 x 24'')
Signed

 

Provenance: The collection of Brian and Anne Friel

 

Exhibited: Basil Blackshaw Retrospective (Travelling Exhibition), Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast November/December 1995; Model Art and Niland Gallery February 1996; and The RHA Gallery January 1997.

 

Literature: Basil Blackshaw: Painter edited by Brian Ferran, Full page illustration Plate 101, Page 62.

 

This was used for the program of Brian Friels version of Chekovs Three Sisters. The image is of an isolated Dacha.

 

When I look at this work Three Sisters a number of names and places comes to mind apart from Brian Friel and Chekov. I am reminded of Shack in Monaghan (1981) by Blackshaw. Im further reminded of Yeatss poem about Countess Markievicz and her sister and their home at Lissadell in Sligo. I recall too Lorcas Barraca - a travelling theatre in Spain.

We know that Basil was commissioned by Field Day founders Brian Friel and Stephen Rea to paint a number of posters to promote plays being performed from 1980 onwards as a cultural and intellectual response to the political crisis in Northern Ireland at that time. Basil confessed to me he didnt go to the theatre very much but got the gist of what Friel was putting on at that time from his partner Helen Falloon who was keener on theatre. A wink was as good as a nod to a blind horse as far as Blackshaw was concerned hence his response to Friels version of Chekovs Three Sisters - he painted a house with three windows naming the work Three Sisters.

Artist and former Northern Ireland Arts Council Chief Executive Brian Ferran observed of Blackshaws Three Sisters image: an isolated house set back in the landscape. Of course, Blackshaw had to find an otherness to express his way of portraying what he considered to be the essence of the outplaying of the dramatists Three Sisters. A house with three windows ended up symbolic of the family at the centre of the production. Interestingly windows would return in earnest in Blackshaws output in the final decade of his life. The Windows series now hangs in IMMA. Blackshaw and Friel remained lifelong friends. On meeting, the dialogue reportedly went like this: Are you painting these days Basil?" Friel would ask, No - the well is dry. Nothings happening and what about you Brian are you writing anything? Basil would query. No, nothing happening. Of course both of them were lying to each other. It was all part of a game which went on between what a mutual friend to both described to me as two foxes playing with each other.

We will not see the likes of them again.

 

Eamonn Mallie, August 2018

 

 

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