ADAM'S - Important Irish Art Auction - 31st May 2017 (Click Lot title for more images and to Place Bid)

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148
Oil on canvas, 75 x 70.2cm (29½ x 27½’’)
Provenance: From the Collection of the late Gillian Bowler.
Exhibited: ‘Basil Blackshaw’, Hendriks Gallery, September 1987, where purchased;
‘Basil Blackshaw Retrospective’ (travelling exhibition), Art Council of Northern Ireland; Ormeau Baths
Gallery, Belfast, November/December 1995; Model Art and Niland Gallery, February 1996; the RHA
Gallery, January 1997
Literature: ‘Basil Blackshaw: Painter’ by Brian Ferran 1995, full page illustration page 114
€ 15,000 - 20,000
Note cont/-
In these works there is evidence of the artist’s method in creating his landscape compositions; ‘Blackshaw plays
two and three dimensional space against each other to make a tense space like an imaginary rubber band be-
tween the foreground and background.’ (Frances Ruane, 1981). This tendency may come from the artist’s admi-
ration of Cezanne as he ‘wanted, like him, to express the “pull and tension which is the whole life of art”. (Ruane,
1981). Mike Catto has also written about Cezanne’s influence; ‘The restraints and gradations which his palette
achieved from 1967 onwards follows Cezanne’s advice to Emile Bernard “to begin lightly with almost neutral tones.
Then one must proceed steadily climbing the scale and tightening the chromatics.” (Art in Ulster 2, 1977, p17).
The early work of Sir Alfred Munnings his sketches and wood panels of horses were of interest to Blackshaw. Of
greater importance, however, was Franz Marc’s ‘Grazing Horses IV’ (The Red Horses), 1911. It has been cited by
the artist as ‘the only horse painting that had an influence on me.’ (Irish Arts Review, Winter 2002, p59). Indeed
such an artist as Marc, through his expressionism, symbolism and primacy of colour, has had a clear impact on
Blackshaw in these works and others where reference to the dominant colour enters the realm of the title; ‘Blue
Nude’, ‘Brown Head’, ‘White Landscape’, and ‘Pink Dog ’. If one were to select a painting that epitomised the closest
tribute to Franz Marc it would be another horse painting entitled ‘Dolly’ 1989 which was executed a few years after
the ‘Horse and Object’ works.
Mercy Hunter, writing for an Arts Council exhibition catalogue in 1974 stated; ‘He especially admires Rothko be-
cause of the apparent ease of his achievement – “he has the pull and push to fill a great area; his sense of scale
is everything.” However, he is not deceived by the seeming simplicity of Rothko’s works. He recognises draughts-
manship as a fundamental discipline…“you must be able to feel if a shape is right or wrong and every shape must
have its own identity.” (Hunter, 1974). This sense of shapes and forms with their own inherent identity is certainly
in evidence in the ‘Horse and Object’ paintings and that crafting of forms placed on the canvas is enhanced by
the primacy of colour. Another definitive aspect to the works is their ability to bring a smile to the viewer’s face.
They are pleasing both in terms of quirky composition and aesthetics; ‘One element is quite inescapable in many
of these idiosyncratic paintings – deep and genuine humour, a quality often found in painters as private people
(including, most definitely, Blackshaw himself) but surprisingly rarely in their work.’ (Brian Fallon in Blackshaw,
2003). One final observation on these works is their resistance to definitive classification in genre terms and this is
in evidence throughout the artist’s oeuvre. Brian Fallon has written on Blackshaw’s unique approach and his pro-
pensity to go beyond defined genres; ‘There is also a large and very special category that stands outside all these
and is entirely sui generis. It might roughly be defined as the special “Blackshaw subject,” meaning (very broadly)
something quirky, unpredictable, occasionally ultra-personal or private, often based on sights that are familiar and
everyday, or on quite non-descript things that just happen to have caught his eye or fancy and are re-shaped by
his alert imagination. Some are almost epigrammatic in their visual wit, while others are lyrical or even poignant.’
(Blackshaw, edited by Eamonn Mallie, Nicholson and Bass, Belfast, 2003)
Marianne O’Kane Boal, April 2017