QAG-2015-21

LURE of THE SUN : Charles Blackman in Queensland LURE of THE SUN: Charles Blackman in Queensland page 23. page 22. It was Birrell who had introduced Frank Thompson to Blackman after the artist’s return from Europe. Birrell and Blackman met again by chance in 1979, in Maroochydore. Blackman recalled: ‘I loved the area and its climate and I loved meeting my friend James, who lived in an old wooden house right by the Maroochy River’. 34 Birrell also introduced Blackman to the history and the natural beauty of the region and encouraged him to explore the landscape. Birrell’s enthusiasm for Blackman as an artist was indicative of many of his Queensland friendships. Regardless of vocation, a deep appreciation of visual art and literature was a shared love, and, as a consequence, mutual interests supported and fed Blackman’s creative processes. This mutual appreciation was expressed in 1986 by poet Pamela Bell, 35 who gifted to the Queensland Art Gallery Molvig’s 1957 portrait of Blackman, and the following year Blackman’s c.1964 charcoal drawing of Australian writer George Johnston. 36 In honour of Brisbane commercial gallerists Marjorie and Brian Johnstone, these gifts recognised the invaluable contribution the Johnstones made to fostering contemporary Australian art in Brisbane in the 1950s and 1960s — and to Blackman’s career. Bell wrote of Blackman’s work: I consider it to be a drawing of Charles at his best . . . it has that gauche and awkward quality of his best work, with no hint of the subsequent sweetness, and yet paradoxically it is a drawing of the greatest command of technique and insight into George. It represents for me a time of mutual friendship between us all . . . and commemorates a memorable lunch, the Blackmans, Judith Wright, George and I, so again it is in the tradition of the works I am in the process of gifting to the Gallery, which in differing ways are about friendships and eras in the cultural life of Queensland. 37 Blackman thrived on these friendships. They provided him with both subject matter and stimulus, and, as with his subtly nuanced portrait of George Johnston, the admiration was mutual. The Buderim years As my surroundings changed me, my work changed too and I started to feel my way into the environment as a painter. 38 When Blackman settled in a rented cottage in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast in 1979, and began a relationship with art student Genevieve de Couvreur, another significant Queensland phase of the artist’s life began. In 1980 he acquired land at Buderim in order to spend more time in Queensland, and Blackman embarked on an intense period of creative collaboration. His work extended the psychological exploration of the first 25 years of his practice to what curator Michael Fox describes as ‘the second half of his career . . . living and painting the dream as a deliberate escape from inner reality’. 39 Blackman produced 32 images to accompany Nadine Amadio’s modern fairytale Orpheus: The Song of Forever , and created the ‘Canecutters Dream’ series of paintings, completed in 1982, which drew on the Italian Renaissance and the story of a migrant Italian canecutter. 40 With daughter Beatrice born in 1982 and son Felicien born in 1984, Blackman decided to make Buderim his principal residence and undertook the building of a large family home and studio, while also working on set designs for the Alice in Wonderland ballet, performed later that year in Perth. 41 JON MOLVIG Charles Blackman 1957 Oil on composition board / 55.9 x 41.7cm / Gift of Miss Pamela Bell in honour of Marjorie and Brian Johnstone 1986 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery