A 'painter's painter' returns to the capital after a decade away.
KIKKO, Fred Astaire, and Rosie made a grand entrance. Elizabeth
Blackadder's most-painted cats were returning from a cattery, home
during their owners' brief trip to Copenhagen. Blackadder and her artist
husband John Houston had arrived back at their South Edinburgh home the
night before. Cats duly welcomed, we resumed our conversation about her
year.
Comings and goings have been frequent occurrences -- the cattery has
done brisk business. In February she lunched with the Queen, sat next to
Tom Conti. The Duke of Edinburgh and Blackadder talked about painting,
his and hers. March saw the unveiling of a portrait of Sir David Smith,
outgoing Principal of Edinburgh University (''Lady Smith thought I'd
made him a bit solemn''). And in April, Blackadder added to existing
honours (OBE, the first woman academician of both English and Scottish
Academies, and other accolades too numerous to mention) an honorary
Fellowship bestowed by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
With a book of her flower paintings due out in October, it's
surprising she found time to focus on the event which most delights her
admirers this year -- her first exhibition in the Scottish capital for a
decade.
But why such a gap? ''I've been showing in London's Mercury Gallery
every two years and I find that, even within that interval, the pressure
can be too great. I did show at the Glasgow Print Studio last May.''
The invitation to exhibit during the 1994 festival came from the
Scottish Gallery. ''Elizabeth is one of Britain's best-known
contemporary artists -- we're thrilled she agreed,'' says Scottish
Gallery manager Robin McLure. ''She's a painter's painter but with wide
popular appeal.''
Ninety per cent of the 70 paintings are new and include oils on a
larger scale than usual plus some landscapes, but there is no radical
change of direction. ''I'm not the kind of painter who goes in for
deliberate changes of approach. I just hope my work is developing
naturally, letting things happen. There's always some difference.''
Anyone coming for the first time to Blackadder's work could be
forgiven for thinking that her pictures represent two sides of her
nature. On one hand, there are the floral watercolours: the artist's
trade mark, chiffon-layered irises, her spiky Strelitzia and translucent
lilies; the voluptuous parrot tulips and fleshy orchids. Kikko (Japanese
for tortoise shell) and Co often end up in the frame. The impression is
one of a woman responding exuberantly and personally to inspirational
subjects.
The still-lines on hand-made Japanese paper, on the other hand --
those familiar, abstract ''tabletop'' arrangements of (increasingly
Japanese) objects drawn from memory rather than direct observation --
seem restrained, ordered, and almost clinical in comparion. But their
creator insists there is no distinction.
''I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm looking at the flowers very
closely, using the same kind of constrictions in all the paintings: one
object's relationship with another and to the paper's surface and edges.
If anything, I let myself go more in the clinical pictures because
they're more abstract.'' It's essential in the flower studies, she says,
to prevent subjectivity taking over.
So the first impression may be one of intimate domesticity --
ornaments, rugs, flowers, cats -- but the home setting is never
completely ''comfortable''. Blackadder is fascinated by the structure
and architecture of things. Similarly, in the decor of her spacious
Victorian home conservative tones are juxtaposed against riotous
bric-a-brac collected on her travels. In life, as in art, she enjoys
visual surprises.
From a personal point of view Blackadder prefers to give little of
herself away. There is no arty posturing; everyone notes her
down-to-earth quality, her reserve. Yet there is more than a twinkle in
the eye. ''Going to art college was slightly disappointing because the
lecturers didn't look like artists. The majority of us don't. Maybe in
London, people advertise themselves more.''
Her reputation adds, she acknowledges, to the build-up of pressure
before an exhibition. ''It doesn't get easier -- you become more
demanding, more critical. But any creative person enjoys a chance to
show what they've been doing.''
Upstairs in her studios (one for oils, one for watercolour) and
surrounded by cherished collections of Japanese fans, toys, and masks,
the artist produced her latest collection in a charactertistically
organic way. A keen reader, she reckons Saul Bellow strikes a chord: he
likens writing to holding a bucket under a tap -- it just comes. And for
Blackadder, painting begins as a vague notion, maybe not even in purely
visual terms. ''Then I begin to conceive it visually and see something
better coming out of it. You can only judge by the finished result what
the inspiration was.''
* Elizabeth Blackadder -- New Paintings is at the Scottish Gallery.
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