Barbara Blackman (née Patterson; 22 December 1928 – 4 October 2024) was an Australian writer and essayist, poet, librettist, radio broadcaster and interviewer, artist, artist's model and activist and philanthropist, who was a patron of the arts and a cultural polymath.
She was married to artist Charles Blackman from 1952 and 1978, who was best known for his
Alice in Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...
paintings, and she featured as an artist model for Blackman.
Blackman was known for her several memoirs and letter writings, and as an arts patron was a noted philanthropist, who in 2004, donated $1 million to a number of Australian music organisations, including Pro Musica, the
Australian Chamber Orchestra, the
Australian National University's School of Music and the Stopera Chamber Opera Company. In 2006, she was awarded the Australian Contemporary Music Award for Patronage, and was honoured with the
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...
(AO)in 2012.
Early life
Blackman was born as Barbara Patterson in
Brisbane, Queensland
Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
on 22 December 1928 with her twin sister, Coralie Hilda, who died 16 days later. Three years later her father, W.H. (Harry) Patterson, died and her mother, Gertrude Olson Patterson, was able to support them both by working as an accountant.
She attended
Brisbane State High School where she developed what was to be a lifelong love of music, particularly
Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded ...
. She also developed an early interest in writing, and was the youngest member of a group of writers called the Barjaj Group, which included
Pamela Crawford,
Judith Wright
Judith Arundell Wright (31 May 191525 June 2000) was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award and nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 196 ...
and
Thea Astley
Thea Beatrice May Astley (25 August 1925 – 17 August 2004) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin ...
. She had
poor eyesight from an early age an in 1950, aged 21, was diagnosed with
optic atrophy. Her vision deteriorated rapidly and she became completely legally blind.
Blackman became an artist's model who was in high demand by many leading modernist artists in Australia such as
Clifton Pugh and
Fred Williams, and appears in many of
Charles Blackman's works, including his ''Alice In Wonderland'' series of paintings.
Writings and broadcasting
Work and interests
Blackman lived a self-described unconventional life according to her autobiography. In a documentary film about her, ''Seeing From Within'', released in 2017, Blackman states, "I could not have lived a conventional life, as I could not have picked up the rules".
She exhibited a wide range of intellectual interests and abilities. For example, she wrote the libretto for
Peter Sculthorpe's ''Eliza Surviva'' (an opera that was never completed because of difficulties between him and his collaborator,
Patrick White), an autobiography, and a humorous book of verse. Blackman's work is highly valued, as evidenced in the collection of correspondence between Blackman and her friend, the poet Judith Wright, published in 2007, and in the list of numerous resources written by her and about her that has been collected in the ''Australian Women's Register''. Nevertheless, Blackman has maintained a humble attitude about her intellectual pursuits, saying, "I go with the angels and they know more than we do." She said "I told them what I wanted and they showed me the way."
She was a notable as a blind activist and pioneer of radio for printed handicap and was a member of the Blind Citizens's Committee Society since 1976. Herself launching into broadcasting in the early 1980's, she recorded 149 oral history programs for the
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
, The ''Barbara Blackman Collection''
included interview's with personality's associated with several genres with the arts, primarily the visual arts including painters, sculptures, potters and others, but also with writers, actors, musician's, theatre directors, architects, medical researchers, occupational therapists and ophalmologists. The interviews where conducted locally in all states of Australia, as well as in Britain and Italy between 1982 and 1989. Blackman was awarded the
Australasian Sound Recording Association's Award for Excellence in Broadcasting and was considered as a significant record of "20th Century Art History".
Personal life and death
She married the Australian artist
Charles Blackman, in 1952, whom she had met in 1949, at his 21st birthday and they lived in Melbourne, supported by her income as an artist's model and from the blind pension and his earnings as a kitchen hand, most of which went to pay for costs associated with maintaining Charles' studio.
They divorced in 1978, after having been married 27 years, after Charles' alcoholism had escalated over their marriage which she described as "one of the great marriages, which lasted as long as possible, and a bit longer".
with Charles Blackman she had three children Auguste and Christabel, both of whom became artists and or authors, and Barnaby (died 2021).
Blackman later married Frenchman Marcel Veldhoven and moved with him to a retreat on the
South Coast of NSW. When this relationship ended in March 2002, she moved to Canberra, where Adrian Keenan, a former music teacher who once resided with the Blackman's became her carer.
Blackman, was brought up as Christian and was an admirer of different cultures and religions, in her later years she was interested in Jungian philosophy.
Apart from her blindness, she had been partially deaf and bedridden in her last 12 years. She died at Clare Holland House in Canberra on 4 October 2024, at the age of 95.
Recognition
Blackman was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2012 under her maiden and married name Barbara Patterson Blackman with the citation "for distinguished service to the arts and to the community, as a supporter of artistic performance, through philanthropic contributions, and as an advocate for people who are blind and partially sighted."
Published works
* ''Certain Chairs'', published by
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer and then acqu ...
* ''Barbara and Charles Blackman Talk About Food'' (Taylor, John), published by Rigby, a division of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company ( ; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, and reference works. The company is based in the Financial District, Boston, Boston Financial District. It was fo ...
*''Glass after Glass : Autobiographical Reflections'',
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
/Viking, 1997 /
*''All My Januaries: Pleasures of Life and Other Essays'',
University of Queensland Press
University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in 1948 as a traditional university press, UQP now publishes books for general readers across fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children's ...
, 2016,
* ''Portrait of a Friendship: The Letters of Barbara Blackman and Judith Wright'' (Bryony Cosgrove), published by The Miegunyah Press, a division of
Melbourne University Press
Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is the book publishing arm of the University of Melbourne. The press is currently a member of the Association of University Presses.
History
MUP was founded in 1922 as Melbourne University Press to sell text ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackman, Barbare
1928 births
2024 deaths
Australian memoirists
20th-century Australian philanthropists
Australian blind people
Australian writers with disabilities
Officers of the Order of Australia
21st-century Australian philanthropists
Writers from Brisbane
People educated at Brisbane State High School