Adam's Important Irish Art September 26th 2018

28 20 BASIL BLACKSHAW HRHA RUA (1932-2016) Game Cock Oil on canvas, 51 x 61cm (20 x 24’’) Signed Provenance: Tom Caldwell Galleries, label verso, where bought by Anne Friel for Brian because she thought that the bird had ‘the look of a survivor’. ‘Basil Blackshaw was as much at home in the company of horses, dogs or roosters as with human beings. He loved rural life and among his pursuits was cock fighting. He was an unapologetic ‘edge of society’ man slipping away with one old codger or another with a rooster in a bag for a secret fight along the Armagh - Monaghan border. That was Blackshaw’s All Ireland final. I recall visiting Basil in hospital some years before his passing and he and a Filipino nurse by the side of his bed started sharing stories about cockfighting. The nurse’s grandfather owned roosters. Basil appeared to improve dramatically as he grew more excited about names of famous breeds of Filipino fighting cocks. Author Jennifer Johnston, a friend of Blackshaw, regaled me with accounts of vicious exchanges she used to have with Basil in the early 70s arising from his many legendary tales about his cockfighting exploits. She protested “he just ignored me and returned the next time I met him to tell me more lurid stories about his cocks”. Blackshaw captured his roosters in various stances. Sometimes with their necks fully stretched skywards, chests puffed out after a good feed. With this intensity one can almost hear a deafening crowing. The position of the bird on offer in this sale is another common stance for Blackshaw’s cocks: portraying that movement when the rooster ‘goes for the kill’. One senses the dust is rising and feathers will fly soon. It’s the bullfight experience all over again. Interestingly Blackshaw rarely painted two birds on the same canvas, he appeared to want to lock all the power and ferocity into the single bird which he opted to paint.’ Eamonn Mallie, August 2018 € 15,000 - 20,000 Paintings from the Brian and Anne Friel Collection