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Introduction 2 Elizabeth Blackadder 4 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham 24 A STUDIO Victoria Crowe 46 Frances Walker 72 PRACTICE 5-29 July 2017 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ +44 (0) 131 558 1200 [email protected] www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Cover: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Scorpio Series 2, No.15, 1996, cat. 17 (detail) Inside front cover: Victoria Crowe, While in Venice, c.1999, cat. 31 (detail) A STUDIO PRACTICE The artist must work in isolation, no guidance is Blackadder the etched line proved the perfect medium available in the moment of creativity. This can be an to describe an exotic orchid, for Barns-Graham the examination of determination passed only by those late Scorpio Series of gouaches had their origin in the with self-belief as well as talent; one without the other expressionist lithographs made with Carole Robertson is either unfulfilled promise or a delusion of worth. at Graal. For Frances Walker lithography was the However, the artist will often seek the encouragement perfect process to depict her beloved Tiree and a sharp of the like-minded in good conversation, the sharing etched line could recall the clarity of South Georgia. of ideas and even insights into technique, fellowship Technical originality characterises the works on paper available in an art club, academy or workshop. This of Victoria Crowe from the etched starting point of can find expression in printmaking, a collaborative her sketchbook leaves to the multi-layered images process usually involving experiment, the advice and combining renaissance and contemporary reference. technical involvement of a master printer and a sense of For these and many other artists the experience of adventure engendered by the unknown, the revelation printmaking will be taken back to the studio and will be of the sheet as it emerges from the etching or litho put to use to invigorate the solitary process. McTaggart bed. A novel palette will be available, imagination called painting ‘the good habit’ and we can add hard required to allow for the reversal of the image and in work to self-belief and talent in our list of attributes for the collaboration the artist will experience letting-go the artist. Inspiration can come from experimentation of complete control through which something new will with a variety of techniques (indeed many artists will always be learned. employ ‘mixed media’); great art cannot be made in Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Victoria Crowe found a vacuum and an open process will enrich a studio this with Graal Press in Roslin with Robert Adam, practice. Elizabeth Blackadder at the Glasgow Print Studio with Guy Peploe John McKechnie and Stuart Duffin and Frances Walker Director at Peacock in Aberdeen with Arthur Watson. For Right: Frances Walker, Shore Pool, 2014, cat. 59 (detail) 2 ELIZABETH BLACKADDER DBE, RA, RSA, RSW, RGI (b.1931) In considering the last hundred and twenty or so elsewhere, not least with the National Galleries of years of Scottish art, the period broadly covering Scotland and her long association with the Royal the modern and of course the contemporary (those Academy (she became an Associate in 1971 and was artists who enjoy the distinction of still being with us), the first woman to be a member of both the RA and we can detect commonalities: those that spring from RSA) has added to her national profile. The list of a consideration of the same landscapes for example, honours and exhibitions runs to a book in itself and or those to do with the enjoyment of the medium of it is hard to grasp the breadth of her achievement oil paint. This allows us to make comparison between across many media. For many she is best understood Peploe, Redpath and Eardley or George Leslie Hunter, as a watercolourist, for many more her printmaking MacTaggart and John Houston. has allowed collectors to own her work, new editions Creativity is as messy as nature and there is no of etchings, screen prints and lithographs appearing unbroken line of development, indeed the notion regularly. Blackadder, like several Edinburgh School of development has become invalid: modernism has painters, has maintained separate watercolour and oil provided the liberty to the artist to make work out studios. Her compositions in oil must be seen as her of anything and depict anything and the art world greatest contribution, brilliant fusions of real objects and has become atomised. For more than half of this imaginary space, limitless colour invention moderated period the images of Elizabeth Blackadder have by impeccable combination, the perfect balance of sharp surprised and beguiled us, a presence that has grown focus and free drawing with the brush and an unerring and achievements that can be considered as quite sense of restraint and harmony, never overworked. discrete from the usual fodder for the survey of our Guy Peploe national school. She can perhaps best be considered as a national treasure, like Burns or Scott or Raeburn, Public collections include: her body of work a monument to quiet application, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums restraint, enlightenment and cultural variety. Each work Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery has the simple poetry of a haiku but is presented with National Portrait Gallery, London the perfect pitch of a tuning fork. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh We have celebrated a consistent relationship between Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh the artist and Gallery, having held ten exhibitions, the Tate Gallery, London last six coinciding with the Edinburgh Festival, put on Victoria & Albert Museum, London with The Scottish Gallery. Of course she has shown Elizabeth Blackadder, 2003. Photo: Norman McBeath. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London 5 This early sketchbook drawing dates from the artist’s time at Edinburgh College of Art. The high horizon may take influence from her tutor and friend William Gillies, but the nervous energy of line, and assured mark making are entirely Blackadder’s own. 1. Fife Farm near Burntisland, c.1952 ink on paper, 33 x 45 cms signed lower right EXHIBITED Elizabeth Blackadder – Decades, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, ex.cat; Modern Masters VI, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2017, cat. 10; Portrait of a Gallery, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2017, cat. 29 PROVENANCE Private collection, Edinburgh 6 7 2. Roman Wall I: Castle Nick, 1963 screenprint, 55 x 72 cms signed and dated lower right, edition of 50 EXHIBITED Elizabeth Blackadder – Decades, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 5 ILLUstrated Elizabeth Blackadder Prints by Christopher Allen, Lund Humphries, 2003, pl.6 8 9 3. Frango no Espeto no.2, 1966 oil on canvas, 91.5 x 91.5 cms signed and dated centre right 10 11 Flowers are often present in Elizabeth Blackadder’s still life compositions and increasingly they became a subject in themselves. She acquired her first garden with her move to Queens Crescent in 1963. There can be no other painter as prolific in the number of things included in her painting: toys, wrappers, ceramics, postcards, fabric, fruit (real and carved), boxes, bowls, parcels and so on. When she travelled she accumulated things and then, eventually, they might be put to use, often crumpled, upside down, rescaled, flattened or partial. 4. White Still Life, 1967 oil on canvas, 102 x 152 cms signed and dated lower left 12 13 The jacket (a favourite garment, a gift from her husband John Houston) bears the colours of the rainbow but in glorious chaos, with the right side of the composition, glass shelves supporting delicate, enigmatic objects includes the rainbow, a perfect glowing arch. 5. White Still Life with Rainbow and Embroidered Jacket, 1974 oil on canvas, 76 x 122 cms signed and dated lower right EXHIBITED Elizabeth Blackadder – Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1974, cat. 9; Elizabeth Blackadder & John Houston – Journeys from Home and Journeys Together, The Park Gallery, Falkirk and the Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, 2011; Elizabeth Blackadder – Decades, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 10 14 15 6. Pavement Leaves, 2013 watercolour, 58 x 77 cms signed lower left EXHIBITED Elizabeth Blackadder – The Nature of Things, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2013, cat. 18; Elizabeth Blackadder – Decades, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 34 16 17 7. Abyssinian Cat, 2003 coloured etching, 36 x 30 cms signed lower right, edition of 80 18 8. Fred, 2003 coloured etching, 30 x 36 cms signed lower right, edition of 80 19 9. Irises, Lilies, Tulips, 2013 coloured etching, 36 x 30 cms signed lower right, edition of 40 20 HIGH RES REQUIRED 10. Irises, 2012 etching, 48 x 69 cms signed lower right, edition of 50 21 11. Tulips, 2012 screenprint, 56 x 76 cms signed lower right, edition of 80 22 12. Wild Flowers, 2013 screenprint, 72.5 x 89.5 cms signed lower right, edition of 65 23 WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM CBE, HRSA, HRSW (1912-2004) Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, known as Willie, was born Public Collections include: in St Andrews, Fife, on 8 June 1912. Determining while Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums at school that she wanted to be an artist, she set her Arts Council of Great Britain, London sights on Edinburgh College of Art, where she enrolled British Museum, London in 1932 and graduated with her diploma in 1937. At the Dundee Museum and Art Gallery suggestion of the College’s principal, Hubert Wellington, Edinburgh City Art Centre she moved to St Ives in 1940. Early on she met Borlase Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Smart, Alfred Wallis and Bernard Leach, as well as Ben Government Art Collection Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo who Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries were living locally at Carbis Bay. Her peers in St Ives Hawick Museum include, among others, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Roger Jerwood Gallery, Hastings Hilton, and John Wells.