QAG-2015-21

LURE of THE SUN : Charles Blackman in Queensland page 12. Over a period of several decades spent in Queensland, Australian artist Charles Blackman was inspired and nurtured by a series of partnerships — with wives, fellow artists, publishers, gallerists, friends and, some would say, places — to produce some of his most innovative and important works. It was during his first visit to Brisbane in 1948 that the artist experienced the sense of intense personal discovery that was to launch his career trajectory, having found love and the means of artistic expression articulated through a strong and unique visual vocabulary focused on an inner, psychological reality. Later, in the early 1980s, he settled at Buderim on the Sunshine Coast, seeking to energise and renew his art through a series of new collaborative projects exploring the natural environment. The first Brisbane visit I especially liked the Spring Hill sort of slanting, slatting latticed timber houses . . . I still have terribly clear pictures of those sorts of tropical nights; we used to play jazz records staring out into the crazy landscape. 1 With no father and a mother who often found herself unable to cope with family pressures, Blackman was a wayward student. He left school at the age of 13, going to work at the Sydney Sun initially as a copy boy, then as a cadet in the compositor, process engraving and art departments. It was here, as an independent and intellectually inquisitive youth, he began to meet people who encouraged his interest in both art and reading. Blackman was inspired to make his way in the world, resigned from his cadetship and, in early 1948, hitchhiked to Brisbane. There, he joined Lois Hunter, a New Zealand poet he originally met in Sydney. Hunter introduced him to the young artists of the Miya Studio, 2 including Laurence Hope, Don Savage, Joy Roggenkamp and Laurence Collinson, and the closely affiliated group of Barjai writers, including Barrett Reid, and, most significantly, Barbara Patterson. Barbara recalled their first meeting in her memoir Glass After Glass: Autobiographical Reflections 1997: ‘A small scruffy muscly painter from Sydney, with eyes bigger than himself but no words to speak of, came regularly to pick up and deliver back the key’, 3 the key being that of the Carnegie Art Reference Library. 4 This association with young artists and writers had a formative influence on Blackman, both personally and artistically. His first tentative artistic renderings are seen in two simple line drawings from this time, Giant tortoise, Brisbane Botanical Gardens 1948 and Sketch of Don Savage 1948. (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) (detail) 1951 Oil and enamel on cardboard / 63.5 x 75.5cm / Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery LURE OF THE SUN: CHARLES BLACKMAN IN QUEENSLAND Michael Hawker