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BASIL BLACKSHAW HRHA RUA (1932 - 2016) – PICTURES FROM THE STUDIO (Lots 122 – 169)
The contents of any artist’s studio on passing rarely reveal the full canvas of the painter particularly in the case of a painter like Basil Blackshaw
who thankfully had a long life as a picture maker. The contents of Basil’s studio gives us a reasonable insight into the subject matter which in-
terested him down the years.
The gem among this Blackshaw body of work is without a shadow of doubt ‘
Clint Eastwood
’ the large oil painting. Basil loved ‘edge of the town
men,’ ‘edge of society people,’ ‘travellers,’ ‘doggie men’, ‘horsey people’, drinkers, cockfighting, boxing and ‘Western films’ and other films portray-
ing hard men. Clint Eastwood played roles in which he was always battling against the odds.... taking on authority, all the time trying to escape as
in ‘Escape from Alcatraz’. This is an outstanding portrayal of Eastwood from a great period of Basil’s output when he was using more paint. This
work reminds me of paintings made by Patrick Swift and Lucian Freud.
Written on his studio wall in chalk were the words
“fredom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose”
(sic)
words penned and sung by Kris Krist-
offerson and by Janis Joplin in ‘Me and Bobby McGee.’ (obviously Kris’s spelling was better than Basil’s). These few words on Basil’s wall tell us so
much about the way he thought.
Nudes featured regularly in Blackshaw’s oeuvre, informed for over thirty years by his wonderful model Jude Stevens whose every contour is
immediately recognisable in the artist’s work. The larger nude drawing in blue and red outline (Lot 133) is a beauty in this context. What shines
through in this limited spread of Blackshaw’s work is his capacity for drawing - witness ‘pencil drawing of horse and jockey’(Lot 168) ‘crouching
nude’ (Lot 158) ‘birds’ (Lot 147) ’study for President Mary Robinson’ portrait, (Lot 166) and so on. The little portrait of the girl with the ginger hair
(Lot 128) is an actress I have seen, but sadly Basil kept her to himself! ‘God is love’ (Lot 143) in its childish depiction is emblematic of Protestant
‘ULSTER.’ I love it in its simplicity. It too contains many meanings which I am certain did not escape the learned Basil Blackshaw.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam
Eamonn Mallie March 2017