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105 BASIL BLACKSHAW HRHA RUA (1932-2016) Horse with Object IOil on linen canvas, 75 x 70cm (29½ x 27½’’)
Provenance: From the Collection of the late Gillian Bowler.
Exhibited:
‘Basil Blackshaw
’, Hendriks Gallery, September 1987, Catalogue No.23, where purchased.
€ 15,000 - 20,000
Horse and Object I & II, 1987
Basil Blackshaw HRUA (1932-2016) was born in Glengormley but his family moved soon after to Boardmills, Co. Down. He
studied at Art College in Belfast in the late 1940s. In 1951 Blackshaw was awarded a scholarship by the Committee for the
Encouragement of Music and the Arts, to study in Paris. It was at this time that he encountered the work of a number of
artists that were to have an enduring impact on his career. A major retrospective of Blackshaw’s work was held in 1974 at
the Arts Council Gallery in Belfast, and another in 1995 was organised by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The latter
was exhibited at the Ormeau Baths, Royal Hibernian Academy, Crawford Municipal Gallery, and a selection of the works
travelled to the United States for a further tour. In 2001 he was the recipient of the Glen Dimplex Award for a Sustained
Contribution to the Visual Arts. He exhibited at the Ulster Museum, Belfast in 2002 and a monograph was published on
the artist by Eamonn Mallie in 2003. In 2012 the Royal Hibernian Academy in conjunction with the F.E. McWilliam Gallery
organised a substantial retrospective of the artist’s work entitled ‘Blackshaw at 80’. He was a member of Aosdana, RUA and
Associate Member of the RHA.
Jude Stephens, Blackshaw’s model for his life studies commented that the artist was more than just a painter; he was a
“traditional countryman who was rooted in rural life. He was someone who connected effortlessly with the natural world
and he lamented the pace of change in much of rural Ireland, especially in the areas that he loved and knew best.”
(The
Irish Times
, May 9, 2016)
Denis Bradley, a close friend of the artist has remarked; “I think that nature was caught, it wasn’t just observed by you,
it was in your bones, in your genes, in all of your breathing and living and being - the horses and the dogs and the fowl,
everything that you painted, ultimately the human beings. It was not an observation or a study, it just came - the gift was
there, you put it in the paint, you put it on the canvas. And for that thank you.”
(The Irish Times,
May 9, 2016)
Blackshaw insisted he did not work in series and hence works that are linked have not been planned in sequence. They
were often created separately with other subjects and genres intervening.
‘Horse and Object I’
and
‘Horse and Object II’
are
however as close to a series as paintings can come. There is continuity in compositional structure, palette, representation,
treatment and scale. They are interesting as a pair certainly but can also be appreciated individually. There is a sense of
floating forms evident and a somewhat flattened canvas in both works.
‘Horse and Object I’
has a horse placed centrally in
the lower ground of the canvas. He stands at ease before a square object in front of him. It is highly likely that the horse
subject is Dolly (depicted in a later painting by name); one can see her chestnut hue, relatively slender form, white mark-
ings on her nose, and a sense of her white fetlocks. The artist is not aiming at an animal portrait but rather an explorative
study of the two forms depicted. The surroundings to the forms are beautifully captured in pleasing pastel shades. The
artist explained his compositional approach in his work to Brian McAvera; “I like…the feeling that it was a piece of work, an
exploration, not a work made for exhibition.” (Irish Arts Review, Winter 2002, p67). In ‘Horse and Object II’ the composi-
tional structure is very similar to its’ precedent yet the entire palette has been brightened and forms are now somewhat
abstracted. The horse appears more grounded at the base of the canvas yet it is less life-like and more symbolic. This is
due, largely, to the elongation of the horse’s face.
Note cont/-