David Blackwood, iconic Newfoundland artist, dies at 80
World-renowned artist, trainer, and Newfoundlander David Blackwood has died.
Blackwood handed away Saturday at his dwelling in Port Hope, Ontario, surrounded by household after a protracted sickness.
His work offered working life in outport Newfoundland as one thing huge and darkish, with mysterious depths beneath each floor.
Blackwood’s dying comes not even a month after the lack of one other equally legendary artist from Newfoundland and Labrador, Christopher Pratt.
A mythology for Newfoundland
Born in 1941 in Wesleyville, Blackwood was raised amongst folks engaged on the ocean who would proceed to encourage his work all through his life.
An inventive prodigy from a younger age, Blackwood was awarded a Authorities of Newfoundland Centennial scholarship to coach on the Ontario Faculty of Artwork. By age 23, his work was being displayed within the Nationwide Gallery.
Blackwood is probably finest identified for his blue-black etchings and prints, which frequently painting scenes from outport life, mummers, icebergs, whales, and males at sea, all shaped of contrasting darkish shadows and vivid white gentle.
“David Blackwood created a mythology for Newfoundland,” says Emma Butler, gallery proprietor and good friend of the Blackwoods.
The Emma Butler Gallery opened in 1987 that includes David Blackwood’s work.
“Individuals find out about these superb tales of the shipwrecks and sealing disasters, tales of mummering and pictures of splitting tables and flakes and all these items.”
“Individuals find out about Newfoundland by way of the pictures of David Blackwood,” she stated.
A few of his most recognizable works are the sequence of prints made within the Sixties and Seventies, The Misplaced Social gathering, detailing the 1914 Newfoundland sealing catastrophe with harrowing scenes of sealers in boats, a darkish, wealthy world round them.
With over 50 etchings within the sequence, it stays one of many largest thematically linked sequence of prints in Canadian historical past.
Blackwood’s work has been exhibited internationally, with over 90 solo exhibits, and two main retrospective exhibitions.
His work is featured in virtually each main public gallery and assortment throughout Canada, from the The Rooms Provincial Artwork Gallery to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, and even within the Royal Assortment of Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Fort.
In 2000, the Artwork Gallery of Ontario created the Blackwood Analysis Centre primarily based round a serious assortment of his works.
He was the topic of the 1976 Nationwide Movie Board documentary Blackwood, which ranked the artist’s etchings alongside these of Rembrandt, Goya, and Dürer. The movie was nominated for an Academy Award.
Blackwood was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1993 and the Order of Ontario in 2003.
Initially a Newfoundlander
Emma Butler, who had spoken with Blackwood a short time earlier than his dying, says he was nonetheless talking of Newfoundland and facets of the land he needed to painting in his artwork.
“He was a fancy man. He was nicely educated. He was nicely learn. An enormous, huge library. He was, I would say, at the beginning, a Newfoundlander even in his final days. All he would communicate of when he would communicate can be about this place.”
“It was all about his work. And he was very sick for a very long time, however was decided to get higher, as a result of he had extra work to do.”
Learn extra from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
