Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)

Little Girl's Dress

Oil and pencil on cardboard, 44 x 34cm (17.25 x 13.25)
Signed

Provenance: The Eamonn Mallie Collection

 

Exhibited: Basil...

Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)

Little Girl's Dress

Oil and pencil on cardboard, 44 x 34cm (17.25 x 13.25)
Signed

Provenance: The Eamonn Mallie Collection

 

Exhibited: Basil Blackshaw Paintings 2000-2002 exhibition, The Ulster Museum, December 2002 May 2003.

 

Literature: Basil Blackshaw Paintings 2000-2002, Ulster Museum, illustrated p.33; 'Basil Blackshaw by Eamonn Mallie, illustrated Plate 115, p.269.

 

Down the years I came to realise Basil Blackshaw would paint on an eyelid if that surface spoke to him. He loved a wide range of surfaces in various materials - canvas, paper, X Ray sheets, newspaper, wood and so on. He drew no distinction when it came to value or significance he placed on a work in any one medium. It was all about living the experience of that which he gained from working in his surface of choice.

 

'Little Girl's Dress' is executed on corrugated cardboard. He deliberately chose that surface to win that feeling being pursued at that moment in time. The first time I saw 'Little Girl's Dress' Blackshaw declared "I could cry when I look at that wee dress." Nothing more was said. I knew what he meant.

Basil, a recovering alcoholic whose marriage to Anna Ritchie, a fellow artist broke up while his daughter Anya was still a child, had by his own admission, missed out on many of her early years and dedicated many decades later heaping his love upon her as he made up for lost time. 'Little Girl's Dress' is essentially a portrait of Anya as a child - replete with the face of the dress parading strawberry coloured stains so synonymous with little girls' dresses of a particular era.

Eamonn Mallie

 

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