Background
Charles Blackman was born on August 12, 1928 in Sydney, Australia.
National Art School
Charles Blackman was born on August 12, 1928 in Sydney, Australia.
Since 1943 to 1946, Charles Blackman attended night classes at East Sydney Technical College (present-day National Art School), though he was principally a self-taught artist.
In 1941, at the age of thirteen, Charles worked as an illustrator for the newspaper "The Sun (Sydney)". Between 1952 and 1955, he produced his "Schoolgirls" series. In 1953, Blackman held his first solo exhibition in the living room of fellow artists Mirka and Georges Mora, and secured the support of influential art patrons John and Sunday Reed.
In 1959, the painter collaborated with a number of figurative artists, including John Brack, Arthur Boyd and Robert Dickerson to create The Antipodeans group, which railed against Australian artists, adopting American Abstract Expressionism and other non-figurative styles. In 1960, Charles and his family lived in London after he won a Helena Rubinstein travelling scholarship. Several years later, upon his return to Australia, he designed sets for Western Australian Ballet Company and Sydney Dance Company, and, with his wife Barbara, Charles bought Chiron College in Birchgrove, Sydney, to offer an alternative kind of schooling for budding artists.
His work has continued to engage audiences around Australia till the end of his life, with exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria and Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne.
An Illusion of Children
Tram Tracks
Gymkhana Visitors
Girl with Blue Flower
Alice
Always Tea Time
Flowers turning into the moon
Girl on Park Bench
The Dancer
Alice and Flowers
Alice through the looking Glass
Two Friends
The Friends
Seated Figure
Schoolgirl Crying
Figure and Flowers
Matador
Totem
Dreaming Girl
Alice
Girl in the Garden
Girl with Sunflowers
Ghost Flower
Alice
Two Women
Drink me
Girl with Flowers
Alice
Girl at a Table
Vases
Alice
The Stairs
Parade
Schoolgirls
Celestial Figure
Double Image
Girl and Flowers
Market Flowers
The game of chess
The Red Park Bench
Drink me
Double Portrait
Cat on the Roof
Leaping Children
Girl Seated
The book
Nude and her Reflection
Hanging Fern
Alice
Mother and Daughter
Alice
Smiling Schoolgirl
Holding a Flower
It is Cheaper to Ride on the Roofs of Taxis Than Inside Them (Scott Floating)
Face
Schoolgirl Jumping
Dream Laying
Christabel's Dream 'The Floating Boat' (Dream Estuary)
Alice's journey
Schoolgirl
Check Cloth
Untitled (The Red Bow)
Girl with Hands
Man Floating
Girl on the Beach
Children Playing
Sleeping Figure
Schoolgirl and Buildings
Schoolgirls with tram tracks
The Book
Spring Hill
Hide and Seek
Windmill
Night Window
The Blue Dress
The Whisper
Breakfast nook
Five schoolgirls
Schoolgirl and Shadow
Hawthorn Schoolgirl
Fifty Flowers
The Dark Street
Daffodils in a White Vase
Fallen School Girl
Schoolgirl
Girl with Starry Dress and Bouquet
Butterflies
Schoolgirl at St Kilda Beach
The Shadow
Schoolgirl
Minotaur
Schoolgirls at Play
Alice Phoenix
Window Light
The Chess Game
Girl and Cat
The Picnic
Schoolboy
Afternoon Light
Autumn Garden No. 3
Orpheus. The Harp of Love
Girl and Butterfly
Fleur De Mal II
Lucy
Two Figures
Girl with Flowers
Rainforest
The Kiss
Black Girl with Friend
Christabel and Her Image
Woman by a Window
Alice
Barbara at the Table
Hiding Schoolgirl
Pelican feeding
Catherine Over Sienna
White Cat’s Garden
Towelled Girls (Dyptich)
Star Gazer
Alice
Schoolgirls
Miss Gauguin
Street Corner
Barbara
Playing Mozart
Blue Girl
School girls in Laneway
Always Tea Time
Beatrice's Bouquet
The Crack Up
Curiouser and curiouser
Playing Statues
Nude and Flowers
Untitled (Nude with Flowers)
Nude and Cat
Schoolgirl and Billboards
Floating School Girl
Barbara and Auguste
Papillon
The Suitor
The Embrace
The Kiss
Girl in a Doorway
Going Home
A Childhood St Francis and St Clare
Flowers to Butterflies
Alice
Alice's Jug
Children
Trumpeter and Drummer
Schoolgirl
Untitled (Sleeping Figure)
There Was
Japanese prayer
The white tablecloth
Fern Garden No. 2
Flowers on the Hill
Children on the Beach
Three Figures
The Night Watch
Dolphin Boy
Figure Vase and Checkered Tablecloth
Alice among the trees
Schoolgirl
Circle of Friends
Two Schoolgirls
The Palm
Schoolgirl
Schoolgirls
Crying Schoolgirl
The Summer Field
Atelier Rouge
Two Girls
School Girl in the Lane
Schoolgirl in a Lane
Boats at Williamstown
Figure and Flowers
Reclining Nude
Dreaming Flowers
Two schoolgirls
Two Schoolgirls
Prone School girl
The Gentle Touch
Yellow Reflections
Lifesaver
Alice
Prelude to Alice
Room at Twilight
Schoolgirl Reading
The White Rabbit
All on a Summer’s Day
Jack Straws
Girl Combing Hair
Schoolgirls and Factory Smoke
Angel with Flowers
Alice in the Garden
Feet beneath the table
Woman with Gladioli
The Red Dress
Divided Faces
Quotations: "There is no psychological truth unless it is particular, but on the other hand, there is no art unless it be general. The whole problem is that – how to express the general by the particular, how to make the particular express the general."
Blackman was part of a radical group of artists in post-war Melbourne, who gained influence in the Australian art scene through the 1950s and 1960s, largely through their rejection of the growing trend in Abstraction and Expressionism in art. The artists called themselves Antipodeans, formalising their rejection of non-figurative art in a manifesto they cowrote and signed in 1959.
Charles Blackman married Barbara Patterson, a writer, in 1951. The couple gave birth to three children — Auguste, Christabel and Barnaby. Barbara and Charles divorced in 1978, largely because of his alcoholism. The following year he married Genevieve de Couvreur, a friend of his daughter, with whom he had two children, Beatrice and Felicien. They divorced after eight years of marriage. In 1989, the painter married Victoria Bower, with whom he had a son, Axiom. That marriage also ended in divorce.