QAG-2015-21

LURE of THE SUN : Charles Blackman in Queensland LURE of THE SUN: Charles Blackman in Queensland page 37. page 36. ( Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) 1951 One of the earliest works by Blackman in the Gallery’s Collection , (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) was painted in 1951, before Blackman moved to Melbourne. Painted on cardboard, its paint surface is mostly uniformly glossy. Using available analysis, 10 microscopic scrapings of blue image layers have confirmed the work to be painted using an alkyd paint — as the first alkyd artist paint was not available until 1976, this finding confirms Blackman’s use of commercial house paint. 11 Alkyds are a class of commercial, solvent-based paint first developed in the 1920s. They contain up to 60 per cent drying oil combined with polyester resin, which enables the paint to dry quickly. The high oil content means that alkyd paint films have similar characteristics to oil paint, but are more brittle due to the addition of resin. 12 Alkyd technology revolutionised the enamel paint market. In 1931, BALM Paints Pty Ltd released its first alkyd brushing paint, the Dulux 388 line — ‘the synthetic finish superseding enamels’. 13 The light alkyd colours in (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) are dominated by titanium white pigment, and also include barium sulphate (blanc fixe), china clay and zinc oxide — a mixture characteristic of house paints. 14 Prussian blue, a strong tinting pigment, and chrome yellow, both widely used in house paints, are found throughout the blues, greens and yellows. Interestingly, a thick, brown priming layer is visible in raking light as large impasto brushstrokes underneath the image layers. This priming layer is heavily packed with barium sulphate and china clay. Its binding medium is present in small proportion relative to the pigments, making its analytical characterisation difficult, however, the dense presence of fillers indicates that it could be an undercoat or commercial putty paint product. 15 Barnes Auto, Brisbane 1952 and City lights 1952 In June 1951, Charles and Barbara moved to Melbourne and were married. The following year, they travelled north for the winter. Before they left Melbourne, art patron Sunday Reed presented Blackman with a leather plumber’s bag containing brushes and tins of Dulux enamel paint. 16 Sunday Reed had also given a similar bag filled with Dulux paints to Sidney Nolan. 17 In her diaries, Barbara describes Charles using these paints while staying with her mother in Kelvin Grove, Brisbane, in 1952. 18 Paint samples from both Barnes Auto, Brisbane and City lights have been found to contain alkyd medium, as well as pigments and fillers typical of Dulux house paints, suggesting these could be the paints from Sunday Reed’s gift. Both paintings also show the broad sweep of brushstrokes from a thick priming layer under the paint layers. A black paint sample from City lights was found to contain nitrocellulose medium, probably pigmented with carbon black. Nitrocellulose is a very glossy and fast-drying medium developed in the 1920s as a spray automotive paint, and can be difficult to apply by brush. Further research may determine the reasons why Blackman chose nitrocellulose paint over the alkyd and oil options available at the time. Being a lightweight material easy to transport on painting trips, cardboard was used as a support for these early paintings. Barnes Auto, Brisbane was later adhered to a pale-coloured mount board, so the back of the original cardboard is not visible. The cardboard of City lights is thin and cracks in the paint on the front relate to both the bending of the cardboard and to pressure points resulting from framing. There is anecdotal evidence that Spring Hill 1952 (private collection) has been split off the back of City lights . 19 Double-sided paintings were not uncommon during this era of the artist’s practice. Blackman recalled that, early in his painting career, he would do a week’s worth of painting, and then he would ‘just paint over the whole lot; I’d paint the fronts and backs, and if they had sides, I’d have painted the sides’. 20 (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) (detail) 1951 / In raking light, this image shows the priming brushstrokes under the image layers / Photograph: Natasha Harth Early Dulux alkyd paint tin (batch 388-017) c.1930s / The contents of this tin have been confirmed by analysis to contain alkyd medium; the pigments have not been characterised / Collection: QAGOMA Artist Material Archive no.17 / Photograph: Natasha Harth A detail of (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) 1951 / In visible light, this image shows a paint cross-section at 20x magnification. A tiny piece of paint was taken from the edge of the painting, embedded in resin and microscopically cut to reveal a cross-section of paint layers, clearly showing the thick priming layer on the bottom, with two alkyd image layers on top / Photograph: Anne Carter