QAG-2015-21

LURE of THE SUN : Charles Blackman in Queensland LURE of THE SUN: Charles Blackman in Queensland page 41. page 40. The bouquet 1961 On 2 February 1961, the Blackmans set sail to London as Charles had been awarded the Helena Rubinstein Travelling Art Scholarship. Using a dark background and scraping back colours applied over the top, The bouquet , painted in Brisbane prior to his leaving for London, is typical of Blackman’s technique at this time. The paint surface is complex, with both matt and glossy deep reds, while a sponge roller has been used to apply the yellow paint vertically. Evidence of sgraffito — using the back of a paintbrush or similar tool to draw through the wet paint — is also apparent. Interestingly, we also see sgraffito used in earlier paintings, such as the city lights on the mountains in the background of (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) . X-radiography of the painting reveal changes to the position of the sitter’s hands. Blackman first painted the sitter holding the short-stemmed bouquet of flowers with elbows bent and both hands clasping the stems. The sitter’s dress was tapered at the waist, with a flared skirt and a V-shaped neckline. We now see a more sombre, shrouded shape, with the hands held lower and a dark void between hands and flowers. Though containing a mixture of paint mediums, again, alkyd house paints predominate, with, for example, medium-rich alkyd titanium white paints, composing the flowers. However, oil paint, pigmented with zinc and titanium is present as a hard, crumbly white paint in the flowers. A cross-section from The bouquet shows a sequence of more than ten different coloured paints. The final layers — blue, overpainted with a transparent black layer followed by two types of yellow — complement the artist’s compositional changes as indicated by the X-rays. The bouquet is painted on composition board with no stamps or marks on the reverse. The conservation analysis on has provided an invaluable opportunity to learn more about these significant works in the Gallery’s Collection, all with an important connection to Queensland. Examination has revealed not only Blackman’s choices and experimentation with commercial and homemade paints, but also fascinating compositional changes in particular works. It is anticipated that future research will reveal even more insights into paint types and the other materials present within the paint layers, ensuring a deeper understanding of Charles Blackman’s rich and revered practice. ENDNOTES 1 Felicity St John Moore, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Charles Blackman [exhibition catalogue], National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p.17. 2 Jo Crook and Tom Learner, The Impact ofModern Paints , Tate Gallery Publishing, London, 2000, p.8; Fotini Koussiaki, ‘The influence of non-traditional art materials on the paintings of Pablo Picasso’, in 2002 Paintings Conservation Specialty Group Postprints , American Institute for Conservation, Washington DC, 2002, p.39. 3 Paula Dredge, ‘A history of Australian house paint technology from the 1920s to the 1950s, with reference to its use by Australian artists, particularly Sidney Nolan’, AICCM Bulletin , vol.33, 2012, p.53. 4 Anne Carter, Gillian Osmond and Bronwyn Ormsby, ‘Ian Fairweather and water-based emulsion house paints in Australia 1950–64’, AICCM Bulletin , vol.34, 2014, p.34. 5 James Gleeson, ‘Interview with Charles Blackman’ [transcript], 26 April 1979, James Gleeson Oral History Collection, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, p.4; Thomas Shapcott, The Art of Charles Blackman , Andre Deutsch, London, 1989, p.24. 6 Shapcott, p.23; Geoffrey Smith, ‘Which way, which way? The production and reception of Alice in Wonderland’, in Geoffrey Smith and Felicity St John Moore, Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland [exhibition catalogue], National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2006, p.22. 7 Moore, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels , p.18. 8 In 1959, the Antipodean group was formed by seven artists (Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh), and one art historian (Bernard Smith), to critique the advance of abstract art in Australia; see http://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/antipodeans/ index.htm, viewed 10 June 2015. 9 Bernard Smith, ‘The truth about the Antipodeans’, The Death of the Artist as Hero: Essays in History and Culture , Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1988, p.204. 10 Analysis used through QAGOMA’s Centre for Contemporary Art Conservation: Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Fluorescence microscopy and X-radiography at QAGOMA; and Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX) at the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, University of Queensland. FTIR analysis by Gillian Osmond, Conservator, Paintings, QAGOMA, and SEM-EDX analysis by Sophie Theobald-Clark, Conservation Intern, QAGOMA. QAGOMA would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of Peter Game at Oz Radiology for his assistance with digital X-rays. 11 Paula Dredge, ‘Sidney Nolan and paint: A study of an artist’s use of commercial, ready-made paints in Australia 1938–1953’, PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2013, p.129. 12 Rebecca Ploeger and Oscar Chiantore, ‘Characterisation and stability issues of artists’ alkyd paints’, in New Insights into the Cleaning of Paintings , Proceedings from the Cleaning 2010 International Conference , Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, DC, 2010, p.89. 13 Dredge, PhD thesis, p.124. 14 Dredge, AICCM Bulletin , p.58. 15 B Roberts, BALM Laboratory Notebook, Recruit training scheme, No.R, 23/06/49 , Dulux Archives, Melbourne, HIS2039, p.56. 16 Moore, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels , p.17. 17 A painting travel case was amongst Sidney Nolan’s Wahroonga studio materials and has recently been investigated. It was found to be an adapted military case containing screw- top jars filled with Ripolin-brand or oil-based paint. No Dulux alkyds were found in Nolan’s case; see Dredge, PhD thesis, p.203, and Shapcott, p.18. 18 Moore, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels , p.32. 19 Walter Granek, email communication with Anne Carter, 6 April 2006, in which Granek described details of the reverse of City Lights , as recorded in 1991–92; Lauraine Diggins, email communication with Angela Goddard, 1 September 2014: ‘. . . when City lights was sold . . . around 2004. It is understood that the person who bought City lights , and its verso companion, arranged for the composition board to be split with the resultant two works’. 20 Thomas Shapcott, Focus on Charles Blackman , University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1967, p.14. 21 ‘Paintings from Alice in Wonderland’ was held at the Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tavistock Place, Melbourne, 12–22 February 1957. 22 Geoffrey Smith, in Charles Blackman: Alice inWonderland , pp.25, 27, 40. 23 Shapcott, The Art of Charles Blackman , p.24. 24 Gleeson, pp.5, 13. 25 Shapcott, The Art of Charles Blackman , p.24; Smith, in Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland , p.21. 26 Felicity St John Moore, ‘Alice, Kelly and the brides’, Quadrant , Jan.–Feb. 2007, p.94. 27 Moore, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels , p.18. 28 Gleeson, p.8. 29 Shapcott, The Art of Charles Blackman , p.24. 30 Anne Carter, ‘Beneath the Blue Alice’, Artlines , September–October, 2000, p.11. The bouquet 1961 / A cross-section, 20x magnification, in visible light (left) and UV illumination (right), reveals the mixture of mediums and colours in the painting; note the white fluorescent layer in the top of the image (right) which is, in visible light, the transparent black layer underneath the top layer of yellow paint / Photograph: Anne Carter OPPOSITE: An X-ray composite showing two sets of hands in The bouquet 1961 / Photograph: Anne Carter and Natasha Harth