Charles BLACKMAN
Born in Sydney in 1928, Died 2018
Charles Blackman’s artistic career spans more than 60 years. Blackman has won many prizes including the Rowney prize for drawing in 1959, the Helena Rubenstein Scholarship in 1960, the Dyeson Endowment Award and the Crouch Prize. His work is held in all Australian state and most regional galleries, institutional and private collections.
Blackman is one of the best known Australian artists, especially famous for his Schoolgirl and Alice in Wonderland series of the 1950s. He was a member of the Antipodean’s, a group of Melbourne painters that also included Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh. This group shared a commitment to the figurative image and saw themselves as representative of Australian cultural identity. They were concerned with the growing support for abstract art work.
Charles Blackman has in many ways been an influence to many young as well as some established artists. His work has been extremely popular and has a strong broad appeal, his symbolic style of including children, flowers, gardens, cats, dreams all reflect emotions and compassion. He is a great Romantic artist, a painter of dreams and emotions.
