Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 27 SEPTEMBER 2023

18 7 BASIL BLACKSHAW RUA HRHA (1932-2016) Seated Figure Oil on canvas, 183 x 122cm (72 x 48”) Signed and inscribed verso Provenance: From the Artist’s Estate € 10,000 - 15,000 To some extent it’s true to say that, periodically throughout his life, Basil Blackshaw tended towards dramatically spare simplicity and understatement in his work. But then, first glances can be decep- tive, and apparent understatement in his case was in fact a sure sense of not over-elaborating. Like Velasquez, he never used one brush-stroke too many. Once the picture was there, he stopped, some- thing that takes great discipline when the temptation might be to show off in a more obvious way. His habitual model was Jude Stephens, and this elegant painting is in keeping with his later, radiantly lit compositions, often focused on windows or walls and nothing else, sometimes with words, or the ev- idence of words, inscribed on the surface. Here, the biscuity flesh tones float against an amorphous, cloudy space and it is as if the warmth of the figure radiates into that space. Born in Co Antrim, the son of a horse trainer, Blackshaw was thoroughly at home in a rural world of horses, dogs and farmyards. Feted as a young prodigy, he backed away from a conventional trajec- tory in his artistic career, quietly quitting a teaching job for example (he never returned after a cold snap temporarily closed the school) and moving from the city back to the country. His core subject matter included animals, the human figure, landscape and portrait subjects. He excelled in all these areas and built a wide, faithful following, as well as being greatly esteemed by his peers. Aidan Dunne, 2023