John Blackburn (2 June 1932 – 22 October 2022) was a British abstract painter, who, after critical success in the 1960s, fell into relative obscurity until the early 2000s.

Life

Blackburn was born in a village outside

Luton Luton () is a town and borough in Bedfordshire, England. The borough had a population of 225,262 at the 2021 census. Luton is on the River Lea, about north-west of London. The town's foundation dates to the sixth century as a Saxon settleme ...

and attended the Margate School of Art, where he studied textile design. After school, he served in the

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

(and later lived) in New Zealand, Malaysia, and the surrounding area from 1954 to 1962. In

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand, he met his future wife, Maudie McKinnon. Soon after the couple married, they settled in

Glenfield, New Zealand Glenfield () is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, located on the North Shore, New Zealand, North Shore. Established as a rural community in the 1850s, the area developed as a suburban part of Auckland after the completion of the Auckland Harb ...

. It was in New Zealand that Blackburn started painting; he would paint in the garden, having become accustomed to the weather, but then later moved on to the North Shore. His paintings were exhibited at the Circle Gallery in Auckland, which established him as a "radical" painter, with his "simple, reduced strong forms in limited pure, unmixed colours." In 1962, Blackburn, with his wife and three children, returned to Britain, where the influential art collector and gallery owner

Jim Ede Harold Stanley Ede (7 April 1895 – 15 March 1990), also known as Jim Ede and H. S. Ede, was a British curator, collector of art and friend to artists. He was the creator of Kettle's Yard in Cambridge. Life and career Jim Ede was born in Penar ...

saw his one-man show in London's Woodstock Gallery. Impressed by what he saw, Ede offered Blackburn a place in his

Kettle's Yard Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities. History and overview Kettle's Yar ...

gallery in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

among artists including

Peter Lanyon George Peter Lanyon (8 February 1918 – 31 August 1964) was a British painter of landscapes leaning heavily towards abstraction. Lanyon was one of the most important artists to emerge in post-war Britain. Despite his early death at the ag ...

, William Scott, and

Roger Hilton Roger Hilton CBE (1911–1975) was a pioneer of abstract art in post-Second World War Britain. Often associated with the 'middle generation' of St Ives painters – Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon & Bryan Wynter – he spent mu ...

. Soon after, Blackburn's ten-year-old daughter became ill and needed a kidney transplant. Blackburn volunteered, spending six months in intense physical training to prepare for the

organ transplantation Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organs may be trans ...

. The time spent before and after the successful surgery prompted Blackburn to drop from the public eye for a number of years. In 2006, Blackburn had a show at the Metropole Galleries in

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a coastal town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour, shipping port, and fashionable coastal res ...

; his work had not appeared in a commercial gallery since 1968. This led to a revival of interest in Blackburn's body of work as he approached eighty-years old. Blackburn died after a short illness on 22 October 2022, at the age of 90. He was survived by his wife and children.

Work

Blackburn's abstract paintings are held in the private collections of Paul Zuckerman and

Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster Natalia Ayesha Grosvenor, Dowager Duchess of Westminster (''née'' Phillips; born 8 May 1959), is a British aristocrat, philanthropist and winemaker. She is the widow of the 6th Duke of Westminster and mother of the 7th Duke. As of 2024, the D ...

. In addition, his paintings are housed in university collections across Britain and Ireland, including

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

, and

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

. In 2008, he returned to Auckland for a show at the ARTIS Gallery entitled ''The

Muriwai Muriwai, also called Muriwai Beach, is a coastal community on the west coast of the Auckland Region in the North Island of New Zealand. The black-sand surf beach and surrounding area is a popular recreational area for Aucklanders. The Muriwai ...

Paintings''; this was followed by a show at the Osborne Samuel Gallery and Lemon Street Gallery in London in 2011. A 2012 show entitled ''And God cryed'' at the Studio 3 Gallery in Kent was a critical success.

Style

Blackburn incorporates found objects and materials on his canvases, citing their "previous existence". His paintings utilize

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Dep ...

oil paint Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. Oil paint also has practical advantages over other paints, mainly because it is waterproof. The earliest surviving ...

, and encaustic, as well as resin, grit, house-paint, and varnish; according to a review of his 2015 show at the ARTIS Gallery, recent work "rides roughshod over any conventions of neatness and grace, using bold form, often black, and adorning his surface with found objects and collage." Of his own work, the artist says, "I suppose, that’s what my painting’s about; life itself is terribly dangerous, terribly cruel, terribly rewarding. All these things at once. This multi-faceted, wonderful jewel – which we all live with and die with – is there. We’re saddled with it, like it or not."

External links

Artist's website (https://www.johnblackburnartist.com/)
*
Interview with John Blackburn - Studio 3 Gallery

Interview with John Blackburn - Ocula

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackburn, John 1932 births 2022 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters 21st-century English male artists 20th-century English male artists