Elizabeth Blackadder | A Celebration

Elizabeth Blackadder

A CELEBRATION

Gold Squares and Fans, 1981, mixed media with gold leaf on handmade paper, 61 x 145 cm (detail)

Foreword

Christina Jansen

It is an honour and a privilege to present Dame Elizabeth Blackadder (1931–2021)

A Celebration for the Edinburgh Festival 2023. The Scottish Gallery’s relationship with Blackadder, which dates back to the 1950s, was both professional and personal: based on mutual respect, hard work, nurture and trust. We have provided a platform and outlet for her prolific studio practice – each exhibition generating its own energy and shaped by her artistic evolution.

Blackadder’s life was dedicated to art, immersed in art history, art education and she enjoyed working in collaboration with art organisations across the field for decades. Alongside her husband, the late John Houston (1930–2008), she left a significant bequest to the Royal Scottish Academy. With a value of over £7million, the RSA Blackadder Houston Bequest will initiate a wide series of opportunities including new prizes, bursaries and travel awards for graduates and mid-career artists. It is a staggering legacy and investment in future talent.

In recognition of Blackadder’s collaborative and cooperative spirit, The Gallery is delighted to be working in partnership with the Royal Scottish Academy, Dovecot Studios, Glasgow Print Studio and the Edinburgh Art Festival. The Royal Scottish Academy will present the Blackadder Houston Bequest, concurrently with our exhibition, providing a window into her and John Houston’s respective studio practices. August 2023 also sees The Gallery officially launch the new monograph The Art of Elizabeth Blackadder by Duncan Macmillan. Our exhibition covers the full spectrum of Blackadder’s career with works in oil, watercolour, print and tapestry. Guy Peploe has written a personal and academic tribute on the following pages, and we reveal a magnificent new tapestry by Dovecot Studios, Flowers and Black Cat. We have also commissioned a short film using images and film from Blackadder’s studio and audio excerpts from the archives of the British Library.

In short, this is a celebration across Edinburgh for Dame Elizabeth Blackadder.

Christina Jansen

The Scottish Gallery

Elizabeth Blackadder painting in her Edinburgh Studio, c.1985

Elizabeth Blackadder – a Tribute

Guy Peploe

Dame Elizabeth Violet Blackadder DBE, RA, RSA, HRSW, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and recipient of a long list of Honorary Degrees, died on the 23 August 2021. Her funeral was a quiet, private event partly because all recognised that the moment to consider her as a person and as an artist would be now. This exhibition is a celebration of, and tribute to, Elizabeth Blackadder’s life in art. Elizabeth Blackadder was, without question, one of Scotland’s greatest artists. She was very important to The Scottish Gallery, with an exhibition history spanning six decades, including 16 solo exhibitions, as well as countless mixed and themed presentations. We have sold over a thousand artworks on her behalf, to both private and public collections. This long creative collaboration can have few comparisons in Scottish art. Blackadder was the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Academy in London and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. She was honoured with a retrospective exhibition organised by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2000, and an early monograph published by Judith Bumpus. In 1999 her biography was written by Professor Duncan Macmillan, and another book on her printmaking by Chris Allan was published in 2003. She held regular solo exhibitions in London and Edinburgh with The Mercury Gallery and The Scottish Gallery. She was included in all the significant surveys of British Art over the last forty or so years. In 2001, she became the first female artist Limner and Painter to Her Late Majesty the Queen, a position within the Royal Household which is unique to Scotland. One decade later, to coincide with the artist’s 80th birthday, a major retrospective of her work was opened at the National Galleries of Scotland. Her legacy is considerable, the fruits of a life dedicated to painting, and the generous consideration and bequest she and her late husband John Houston have gifted to the Royal Scottish Academy to provide opportunities for future artists.

The Early Years

Elizabeth Blackadder was born in Falkirk, Stirlingshire in 1931. She grew up in a fine sandstone house next to the family engineering works. Her brother described her as resembling their father in character: quiet, thoughtful, gentle but with an underlying strength of mind. Given the importance of flowers as a subject in her later practice, it is worth noting that as a young girl she built a fine collection of pressed local flowers, all labelled with their botanical names. She studied art at Edinburgh College of Art from 1949 until 1954, under Robert Henderson Blyth and William Gillies, one of the leading lights of the relatively progressive Edinburgh School which emerged in the 1930s.

Gillies was special to me. When I was a young student in I949, and being a woman, I got no feeling from Gillies that I was in any way different – you were a painter, and it didn’t matter what you were, man, woman, whatever. He just expected you to get on with it. That sense of there being no difference may not seem very much, but I think it was something very special to him and important to me as a painter, right from the beginning. I was very lucky to have such encouragement.

Left: Elizabeth Blackadder, c.1970

Right: John Houston and Elizabeth Blackadder, 1954

Elizabeth Blackadder at The Church of Metamorphosis tou Sotiros, Thessaloniki, Greece, 1954

Blackadder married a fellow-student, John Houston in 1956, and the two are widely held to exemplify a mutually supportive and work-oriented relationship. The college granted both artists travelling scholarships to southern Europe and Italy. She joined the staff at Edinburgh College of Art in 1962, where she taught until her retirement in 1986.

Anyone who had the privilege to know Elizabeth, knew that she was a modest, shy person, with little time for ego or competition. To herself, she was never Dame Elizabeth Blackadder and she did not regard herself as a public figure. I recall picking up a watercolour from her at home and noticing that she had absentmindedly signed Elizabeth Houston, perhaps having just paid the fishman. I had known Elizabeth since my childhood when she and John, sharing the private park behind Queens Crescent with our family home in McLaren Road, would emerge in whites for an occasional game of tennis. My father was a fellow colleague at Edinburgh College of Art in the Drawing and Painting Department. When I started working at The Scottish Gallery in 1983, I was often at Fountainhall Road where she was usually in her studio, or studios: watercolours made in the room on the right at the front of the house and her oil painting studio to the left; gracious when interrupted, but always anxious to get back to work. Her exhibitions at The Gallery were great events, normally held during The Festival and of huge importance to The Gallery, commercially and reputationally.

Technique

Blackadder drew and painted every day. She took inspiration from her home and garden and absorbed the world around her, taking pleasure in the simple things: a cat would bring a leaf into the studio which would be quietly taken to the studio to become a subject, or the bold outline of a Galia melon from Waitrose would become the anchor in a table-top still life composition. There is a particular quality about every mark she made: in a sketchbook, on a sheet of watercolour paper, the first essay on a newly primed canvas, or the final mark when the painting suggested itself as finished. She made distinctive and beautiful marks; perfectly balanced in modulated colour. As her painting developed, she was far from satisfied by a tried formula; in the 50s and 60s she used plenty of impasto – and typically a brilliant deployment of white, enlivened with jewel-like colour. Paintings from this period have links with British Pop Art, but also with European tachisme, with Nicolas de Staël and Antoni Tàpies. Her greatness was not confined to her technique; she had plenty to say, and her choice of subjects

Selected Scottish Gallery invitations and catalogues Right: Elizabeth Blackadder in her Edinburgh Studio, 1981

were always original. She worked in the traditional territory of landscape and still life, her inheritance from Gillies and The Edinburgh School, but she subverted conventional beauty and found a new way of seeing – a block of uniform forestry on a dark hillside would make a Blackadder subject, rather than the repoussoire trees and classical vistas of Claude and Constable. When painting flowers in the studio: irises, and tulips from the garden, she was not a careful illustrator – quick, light energetic pencil drawing would precede the sumptuous watercolour. Her garden provided the flowers and her engagement with the subject was well summed up in the Irish Times in 2000:

From 1963 she and Houston had a garden – at first a small garden, then, after another move in 1975, a much bigger and reputedly magnificent garden in Fountainhall Road in Edinburgh. By 1966 she had started drawing flowers and, as time went by, they became a significant strand of subject matter. Blackadder’s involvement in botanical illustration began in 1979, when she collaborated with Dr Brinsley Burbidge of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh in organising an exhibition of botanical illustrations, ‘The Plant’. The same year she made what might be regarded as her first botanical work per se, a study of an amaryllis and a crown imperial.

Within the frame of fine art, botanical illustration is an area that has been consistently downgraded, because it is perceived as being functional, mechanical and, arguably, because it is often done by women. Plants were a subject for Blackadder for many years and she approached them in a way curiously in between naturalistic representation and botanical observation. Together with a meticulous account of a flowering hibiscus, for example, she would include

images of the cats who happened to be lying on the grass. Inevitably, some observers feel that her work is too informal to stand as being strictly botanical, while others argue that it’s too botanically inclined to be art. Of course, it is both. The liveliness of her line brilliantly conveys a sense of the living plant in a way that a more pedantic rendering never could, without any sacrifice of accuracy or clarity.

Teaching

As a teacher at Edinburgh College of Art, she is not remembered as a dedicated didact, but many hundreds of students will have benefited from her quiet counsel and more by the dedication of her professional example: making art, what McTaggart called the good habit, was as much about hard work as inspiration. Former student Francis Convery, RSA recalls:

1980, as a second year painting student at Edinburgh College of Art, amongst the objective, set projects, we were encouraged to make a subjective self-portrait. I remember Elizabeth doing the rounds and her quiet, understated suggestions (usually disguised as questions): ‘do you think that bar of soap in the sink, could be a bit more pink…’ so not concentrating on the likeness of the self-portrait but the importance of compositional orchestration in painting. Elizabeth always seemed able to see what had not been seen and established for me, the importance of the subjective, editorial fine tuning of a painting.

Above: Postcard from Japan, 1982

Left: Sir Robin Philipson, President of the RSA introducing HRM Queen Elizabeth II to Elizabeth Blackadder, 1973

Opposite: Elizabeth Blackadder at Edinburgh College of Art, c.1981

Photograph: Robert Mabon

Screenprints and Lithographs

There was no complacency in her own practice, and this is perfectly exemplified by her huge commitment to printmaking, working with all print media and collaborating with creative technicians and artists. Her screenprints and lithographs of flowers, made at the Glasgow Print Studio, helped inform and enhance her approach to watercolour back in the studio. She worked productively with Iain Barnet at The Gallery who in 1988 organised a joint show of prints by both Elizabeth and John, which unusually was the first time they had ever been exhibited together.

Travel

Throughout her life travel was a vital ingredient of her art, inspiring new subjects and providing material to be brought home and included in studio compositions. In the 80s and beyond, the influence of Japan fully entered her practice. Her first visit to Japan with John was in 1985 and the toys, wrappers, kimonos, lacquer boxes which came home with her were put to good use: paintings with these enigmatic, exotic, and mundane objects, often combined with flowers, demonstrate her perfect sense of design in their placement in her composition. She employed elements of Japanese garden design, examining interior and exterior relationships of Japanese architecture such as a temple profile and a pool of koi carp. Her own aesthetic met with eastern artistic traditions, and the collision was gentle and creative.

In Europe, in some of the great and lesser cities, where Michelin starred restaurants were booked in advance of the holidays taken with friends (which she and John enjoyed so much) she always took time to walk and scout for subjects: a hoopoe over the midday quiet of Saint-Émilion, the little chug-chug ferry crossing the Venetian lagoon – these were her subjects – always surprising and original, appealing to her, when only she could see the charm and truths to be revealed.

Elizabeth Blackadder’s greatest bequest is a personal one: the gift of her work, the opportunity for an individual to stand in front of one of her paintings, wherever it is found, and let the satisfaction of its rightness work a strange alchemy which leaves the viewer a better and more fulfilled person. Elizabeth was a charming, rather other-worldly person and I will always remember her as a kind woman with a unique talent.

Guy Peploe

The Scottish Gallery

Top: Elizabeth Blackadder in her Edinburgh Studio, 1989

Above: The Scottish Gallery, Elizabeth Blackadder Edinburgh Festival Exhibition Catalogue, 1998

Right: Elizabeth Blackadder in her Edinburgh garden, 1989

Elizabeth Blackadder in her Edinburgh Studio, 2010

Chinese Still Life, 1977, oil on canvas, 122 x 122 cm (cat. 13) (detail)

The Good Practice

1 Still Life with Pineapple, c.1963 oil on canvas, 61 x 92 cm signed lower left

exhibited Young Scottish Artists, Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition, c.1975

2 Pigeon House and Village, Mykonos, 1963 oil on canvas, 86 x 112 cm signed and dated lower right

exhibited Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1963; Elizabeth Blackadder Retrospective, Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Cardiff, London, 1981–82

3 Door to a Garden, Vence, 1966 oil on canvas, 127 x 101.5 cm signed and dated lower right

exhibited Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1966; Elizabeth Blackadder, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2011

illustrated Elizabeth Blackadder, Yale University Press & National Galleries of Scotland, 2011, no.28

4 White Studio Table, 1966 oil on canvas, 101.5 x 127 cm signed and dated lower right

5 Borders Landscape, 1967 oil on canvas, 71 x 91.5 cm signed and dated lower left

6 The Swiss Steamer, 1972 oil on canvas, 25.5 x 25.5 cm signed lower right exhibited The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1972

7 White Still Life, 1970 oil, pastel and chalk on paper, 80 x 102 cm signed and dated lower left

8 Still Life with Boxes, Red Ground, 1972 oil on canvas, 152.5 x 142.5 cm signed and dated lower right

9 Still Life with Chequered Box, 1974 oil on canvas, 76 x 76 cm signed and dated lower right

10 Still Life with Fan, Star and Easter Egg, 1974 oil on canvas, 91.5 x 101.5 cm signed and dated lower left

11 Still Life with Patterned Cloth, 1973

oil on canvas, 122 x 122 cm

signed and dated lower left

12 Mirror and Tortoiseshell Box, 1976 oil on canvas, 101.5 x 127 cm signed and dated lower left

exhibited Elizabeth Blackadder Retrospective, Welsh Arts Council touring exhibition, Aberystwyth, Brighton, Bangor, Cardiff, Bath, Lancaster, 1989

13 Chinese Still Life, 1977

oil on canvas, 122 x 122 cm signed and dated lower left

exhibited Scottish Painting and Tapestries, Offenberg, West Germany, 1979; Elizabeth Blackadder Retrospective, Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Cardiff, London, 1981–82; Elizabeth Blackadder Retrospective, DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery, Durham, 1992

15 Spring Flowers, 1983

watercolour on paper, 57 x 66 cm signed and dated lower left

exhibited Elizabeth Blackadder: Henry Moore, Lillian Heidenberg Gallery, New York, USA, 1983

A

Bit of Lobster, 1980 oil on canvas, 35.5 x 35.5 cm signed and dated lower left

17 Notes on Japan, 1981–84

watercolour and collage on paper, 65 x 99 cm

signed and dated lower right

Spring Flowers, Fritillaria, Erythronium and Passiflora Caerulea, 1987 watercolour on paper, 31 x 37 cm signed and dated lower left

19 Strelizia, 1989

watercolour on paper, 101.5 x 68.5 cm signed and dated lower right

2019

exhibited Elizabeth Blackadder: From the Artist’s Studio, Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester,

20 Rosie and Flowers, 1979 watercolour on paper, 80 x 59 cm signed and dated lower right

21 Rosie, Coco and Orchids, 1984

watercolour on paper, 64 x 51 cm signed and dated lower left

Little Still Life, Nikko, 1989

watercolour and gold leaf on Japanese paper, 22 x 29 cm

signed and dated lower right

23 Japanese Still Life, Silver and Gold, 1983

watercolour and gold leaf on Japanese paper, 56 x 56 cm signed and dated lower right

Still Life with Chinese Boxes, c.1985

watercolour and gold leaf on Japanese paper, 29.5 x 33.5 cm

signed lower right

Still Life with Butterfly, c.1985

watercolour and gold leaf on Japanese paper, 24 x 31 cm signed lower left

27 Still Life with Orchid, 1990 oil on canvas, 101.5 x 112 cm

signed and dated lower left

exhibited Orchids and Other Flowers, Glasgow Print Studio, 1993; The Edinburgh School – Edinburgh Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1993; Elizabeth Blackadder, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2011

illustrated Elizabeth Blackadder, Yale University Press & National Galleries of Scotland, 2011, no.53

L’Arcouest, Brittany, 1990

watercolour and pencil on paper, 46 x 57 cm

signed, dated and title inscribed lower right

Reflection in a Dark Pool, 1993 oil on canvas, 152.5 x 203 cm signed and dated lower right

31 Irises, 1994

watercolour on paper, 56.5 x 76 cm signed and dated lower left exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1994

32 Australian Plants, 1993

watercolour on paper, 52 x 76 cm

signed and dated lower right

watercolour and gold leaf on Japanese paper, 61 x 87.5 cm

signed and dated lower right

35 Seagulls, Fishmarket, Venice, 2002 oil on canvas, 91.5 x 122 cm signed and dated lower right

exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2004

illustrated

The Art of Elizabeth Blackadder by Duncan Macmillan, Lund Humphries, London, 2023

37 Mixed Irises, 2004

watercolour on paper, 78.5 x 56.5 cm signed and dated lower right exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2004

38

Fruit on a Dark Table, 2002 oil on canvas, 91.5 x 122 cm signed and dated lower right

39 Still Life with Persimmon, Oriental Tiger Card, Box and Vegetable, 2013/14 oil on canvas board, 28 x 40.5 cm signed lower right

40 Melon, Squash and Chinese Cloth, 2004 oil on canvas, 46 x 51 cm signed and dated lower left

exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2004; Elizabeth Blackadder, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2011

illustrated Elizabeth Blackadder, Yale University Press & National Galleries of Scotland, 2011, no.86

41 Tulips, c.2008 oil on canvas, 66 x 51 cm signed lower right exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2008

42 False Palm Shadow and Kimono, 2008 oil on canvas, 122 x 91 cm signed lower left exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2008; Elizabeth Blackadder: From the Artist’s Studio, Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester, 2019

43 Still Life with Gloves, c.2010 oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cm signed lower right exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2011

44 Japanese Plate and Wooden Fruit, c.2009 oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5 cm signed lower right exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2011

Sweet Fish and Avocado, 2011

exhibited Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2011; Journeys Together, Park Gallery, Falkirk, 2011; Elizabeth Blackadder: From the Artist’s Studio, Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester, 2019

45

oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cm

46 Small Blue Still Life with Ceramic Fig, 2010 oil on canvas, 20.5 x 45 cm signed lower right

47 Gladioli, c2010 oil on canvas, 101.5 x 76 cm signed and dated lower left

exhibited Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 2010; Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2011

49 Lilies and Mixed Flowers, 2010 watercolour and pencil on paper, 80.5 x 59 cm signed lower left

50 Crabs and Other Shells II, 2011

watercolour on paper, 29.5 x 40 cm signed lower left

exhibited Elizabeth Blackadder, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2011; Elizabeth Blackadder: From the Artist’s Studio, Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester, 2019

illustrated Elizabeth Blackadder, Yale University Press and National Galleries of Scotland, 2011, no.93

51 Blue Crab, 2010 watercolour and pencil on paper, 57 x 35.5 cm signed and dated lower left

exhibited Elizabeth Blackadder: From the Artist’s Studio, Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester, 2019

Glasgow Print Studio and Elizabeth Blackadder

Elizabeth Blackadder had a long and fruitful relationship with Glasgow Print Studio. She began her printmaking collaboration with Glasgow Print Studio at the invitation of director John Mackechnie in 1985, creating more than 150 editions over a 30 year period. Blackadder worked in collaboration with several Master Printers working regularly with John Mackechnie and Stuart Duffin on her etchings and with Norman Mathieson and Scott Campbell on her screenprints. Over her lifetime, Blackadder experimented with a range of diverse printmaking media including lithography, screenprint, etching, aquatint, carborundum, drypoint and woodcut. Likewise, she produced works covering a diverse range of subject matters and styles, including landscape, still life, animals, flora and fauna. In many cases, the connection was personal: flowers she had grown, cats she had reared as kittens, and places she had visited with her husband, the artist John Houston. In all cases, they are brilliantly observed, beautiful and beguiling. Blackadder created wonderful images of shrines in Kyoto, detailed observations from her travels in Italy, charming drawings of her beloved cats, and a variety of delicate and finely detailed orchids and seed heads that combine her analytical draughtsmanship with the soft amorphous flow of colour.

Elizabeth developed a unique style which was instantly recognisable and sought after. Whenever her work was shown, at art fairs for example, visitors would beat a path to see her latest rendition of cats, flowers or images from her travels in France, Italy and Japan. Her trips to Japan in particular influenced her style in terms of colour and pattern.

John Mackechnie MBE RSA, Director of Glasgow Print Studio

Blackadder and print, particularly etching, were made for each other. Her drawings – and, to some extent, her watercolours – are distinguished by the incredible quality of her line. Something produced by a combination of inherent ability, practice and refinement. Her line could appear sinuous and seemingly casual, or incisive and taut, but it was always fluently, crisply precise. Print brought out the strong linear quality of her work.

I enjoy working with printmaking. I’ve been very lucky to work at the Glasgow Print Studio for years now. It has opened the door to different things.

Elizabeth Blackadder,

2010

Still Life with Iris, 1987–89, etching with aquatint and gold leaf on paper, 43 x 53.2 cm (cat. 53) (detail)

52 Roman Wall I: Castle Nick, 1963 lithograph, 55 x 72 cm signed and dated lower right

Still Life with Iris, 1987-89

etching with aquatint and gold leaf on paper, 43 x 53.2 cm signed lower right

56 Fred, 2003

etching, 49.5 x 54 cm

signed lower right

57 Venice: High Tide, 2000

10 x 17 cm

60 Orchidaceae Laeliocattleya Chinco ‘La Tuilerie’, 2009 etching, 35.5 x 30 cm signed lower right

Dovecot Studios

Blackadder has been an important artist for Dovecot over the many years she has collaborated with the Studio. She was one of the first major women artists Dovecot worked with, just two years after the employment of the Studio’s first woman weaver. The ‘Scottish Collection’ of tapestries produced to mark Dovecot’s 75th anniversary in 1987 featured two made with Blackadder, and she was a vital part of the institution’s efforts to define itself as a specifically Scottish tapestry studio.

It was also Blackadder who in 2004 designed one of Dovecot’s first major commissions after a period of major instability – the Arcadia tapestry made for P&O. She remained a reliable source of works that were both satisfying to weave and popular throughout her relationship with Dovecot.

This in part is because Blackadder’s paintings and watercolours are wellsuited to interpretation through tapestry. The frequently flattened perspectives, large fields of colour and meticulously arranged, somewhat stylised objects in her still lifes translate well to the medium. Her vivid use of colour and exploration of the spaces between objects proffers considerable opportunity for the weavers to make the most of their knowledge and skill during weaving.

However, the relationship also flourished thanks to the mutual appreciation that developed between Blackadder and the weavers interpreting her work. Over the many years that she worked with Dovecot’s weavers, their relationship evolved to the point where artist or weaver could suggest a change with barely a word. The weavers knew Blackadder would quickly and reliably provide a design that could be made into a successful tapestry, while Blackadder trusted the weavers enough to remain open to their suggested edits or adjustments.

To commemorate Blackadder’s passing and celebrate this long and fruitful relationship, Dovecot has chosen to weave a further two tapestries based on paintings by her. Between them, Flowers and Black Cat, 1976, and Still Life with Dragon Fruit and Oysters, 2010, span most of Dovecot’s relationship with Blackadder. Together, they sum up so much of what made the long collaboration so successful. There are the meticulous flowers, the springing cat, the slightly abstracted objects and the large fields of colour and space that translate so well to woven tapestry. Weaving Flowers and Black Cat and Still Life with Dragon Fruit and Oysters is the perfect way to sum up a beautiful relationship that lasted over half a century.

Elizabeth Blackadder at the cutting off of Arcadia, Dovecot Studios, 2004

Photograph by Simon Grosset and Dovecot Studios

The collaboration between Dovecot Studios and Elizabeth Blackadder stretches across more than half of Dovecot’s existence. Blackadder first worked with Dovecot weavers in 1966 on an interpretation of her Still Life (Tulips); Dovecot would go on to make a further 28 tapestries and five rugs with the artist during her lifetime.

Dovecot Studios after Elizabeth Blackadder

62 Flowers and Black Cat, 2023 handwoven tapestry, wool and cotton, 107 x 126 cm

woven by Emma Jo Webster

The Art of Elizabeth Blackadder

by Duncan Macmillan

The extraordinary beauty of Dame Elizabeth Blackadder’s art is characterised by superb draughtsmanship and an amazing ability to find equivalents in paint for her observations and memories. Duncan Macmillan’s lively and authoritative text reveals how Blackadder revitalised long-established traditions of landscape, still-life and flower painting and encourages us to discover the enchanting work of one of the most significant Scottish artists of recent times.

Sir John Leighton, Director-General National Galleries Scotland

Exploring the development of Elizabeth Blackadder’s art in all its richness, this revised edition of Duncan Macmillan’s 1999 book expands the account of an important artist and her significant body of work. With her oeuvre ranging through still life, landscapes and flower painting, Elizabeth Blackadder (1931–2021) was one of the best known and respected artists in the British painting tradition. The first woman to be elected to both the Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy, she exhibited widely from the 1960s and her work has been reproduced extensively. Updated to include new imagery, Duncan Macmillan’s expert text is essential reading for Blackadder’s legion of fans.

Duncan Macmillan is Professor Emeritus of the History of Scottish Art at the University of Edinburgh, art critic for The Scotsman and author of numerous books including widely acclaimed Scottish Art: 1460–2000 (2000), Scotland’s Shrine: The Scottish National War Memorial (2014), and Scotland and The Origins of Modern Art (2023).

The Scottish Gallery and Professor Duncan Macmillan will officially launch The Art of Elizabeth Blackadder on Saturday 12th August 2023 12noon–2pm.

Signed copies available in The Gallery.

Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 144 pages including 78 colour illustrations.

Dame Elizabeth Blackadder DBE, RA, RSA, HRSW (1931–2021)

Selected Solo Exhibitions

1959 57 Gallery, Edinburgh

1961 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

1965 Mercury Gallery, London

1966 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

Thames Gallery, Eton

1967 Mercury Gallery, London

1968

Reading Art Gallery and Museum

Lane Art Gallery, Bradford

1969 Mercury Gallery, London

1970 Vaccarino Gallery, Florence

1971

Mercury Gallery, London

Loomshop Gallery, Lower Largo, Fife

1972 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

1973 Mercury Gallery, London

1974

1976

Loomshop Gallery, Lower Largo, Fife

Mercury Gallery, London

Loomshop Gallery, Lower Largo, Fife

1977 Middlesborough Art Gallery and Museum

Hambledon Gallery, Blandford, Dorset

Stirling Gallery, Stirling

1978 Mercury Gallery, London

Yehudi Menuhin School, Stoke D’Abernon

1980 Mercury Gallery, London

Oban Art Society

1981 Loomshop Gallery, Lower Largo, Fife

Bohun Gallery, Henley-on-Thames

1981–82 Retrospective Touring Exhibition, Scottish Arts Council

1982 Mercury Gallery, London

Mercury Gallery, Edinburgh

Theo Waddington Gallery, Toronto, Canada

1988 Mercury Gallery, London

Retrospective Touring Exhibition, Welsh Arts Council

1991 Abbot Hall, Kendal

Mercury Gallery, London

1992 D.L.I. Museum and Art Gallery, Durham

1993 Glasgow Print Studio

Mercury Gallery, London

1994 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Festival Exhibition

1996 Mercury Gallery, London

1998 Glasgow Print Studio

Mercury Gallery, London

The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

1998–99 Glasgow Print Studio, touring Great Britain and Ireland

1999–2001 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

2001 Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh

2002 Browse and Darby, London

2003 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2004 Browse and Darby, London

The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2006 Browse and Darby, London

2008 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

Browse and Darby, London

2010 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2011 National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2011–2012 Park Gallery, Falkirk

2013 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

1983

1984

1985

1986

Lillian Heidenberg Gallery, New York

Mercury Gallery, London

Mercury Gallery, Edinburgh Festival Exhibition

Lillian Heidenberg Gallery, New York

1987 Henley-on-Thames Festival of Music and the Arts

Salisbury Festival

Glasgow Print Studio

2015 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

Browse and Darby, London

2016 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2019 Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

2020 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2021 Garden Museum, London

2023 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

Selected Public Collections

UK Collections

Abbot Hall, Kendal

Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums

Argyll & Bute Council

Bolton Art Gallery, Library and Museum

Bradford Museums and Galleries

Brighton and Hove Museums

Contemporary Art Society, London

DANUM Gallery Library Museum, Doncaster

Duke of Wellington’s Regiment Museum, Halifax

Dumfries and Galloway Council

East Dunbartonshire Council

Edinburgh College of Art

Fife Cultural Trust, Fife Council

Glasgow Life Museums

Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

Government Art Collection

Greater London Council

Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh

Huddersfield Art Gallery

Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge

Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery

Lillie Art Gallery

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Museums and Galleries Edinburgh –City of Edinburgh Council

Museums Sheffield: Graves Gallery

National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

National Portrait Gallery, London

NHS Lothian Charity – Tonic Collection

Nottinghamshire County Council

Nuffield Foundation

Paintings in Hospitals

Paisley Museum and Art Galleries

Perth Museum and Art Gallery

Reading Museum

Royal Academy of Arts, London

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Scottish Television

Tate Gallery, London

The Carnegie Trust, Dunfermline

The Fleming Collection

The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum

The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Towner Eastbourne

Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle

University of Aberdeen

University of Edinburgh

University of St Andrews

University of Stirling

American Collections

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, USA

Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, USA

Racine Art Museum & Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, Wisconsin, USA

Yale Centre for British Art, Connecticut, USA

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition

Elizabeth Blackadder

A CELEBRATION

Festival 2023

Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/elizabeth-blackadder-celebration

ISBN: 978-1-912900-69-5

production The Scottish Gallery

design Kenneth Gray

photography John McKenzie and Glasgow Print Studio

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All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers. All essays and picture notes copyright The Scottish Gallery.

Cover: False Palm Shadow and Kimono, 2008, oil on canvas, 122 x 91 cm (cat. 42) (detail)

Inside covers: Details from Elizabeth Blackadder’s Edinburgh Studio, 2022