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Details
- Date
- 1935
- Media category
- Materials used
- linocut, printed in black ink on thin ivory laid tissue
- Edition
- Unknown, approximately 10
- Dimensions
- 30.2 x 24.4 cm blockmark; 35.2 x 29.9 cm sheet (irreg.)
- Signature & date
Signed within block to print lower c., incised "VBB".
Signed and dated l.r., pencil "Vera Blackburn July 1935".- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by the Australian Prints, Drawings and Watercolours Benefactors' Fund 2006
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 307.2006
- Copyright
- © Estate of Vera Blackburn
- Artist information
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Vera Blackburn
Works in the collection
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About
Vera Blackburn took private art classes with Thea Proctor in 1931, who taught her how to make linocuts. She also studied for five years at the Adelaide Perry Art School in Sydney before leaving for England with her father in 1937. While in the UK she studied at the Westminster School of Art under Meninsky and Gertler among others, and was friends with a number of expatriate artists including Jean Bellette, Eric Wilson, John Passmore and William Dobell. She remained in England after marrying in London in 1939, when she ceased to make art.
"This linocut with its undulating line of swans was inspired by a passage in Tchaikovsky's music for 'Swan Lake' which the artist had recently seen. She had also been reading an Irish legend about the Children of Lir who were transformed into swans by an enchantment."
Roger Butler, 1979© Australian Art Department, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2006
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Australian Collection Focus: Colour, Rhythm, Design - wood & lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 Mar 2010–11 Jul 2010
Modern impressions; Australian prints from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 02 Sep 2016–Jan 2017
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Bibliography
Referenced in 4 publications
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Roger Arthur Butler, Vera Blackburn, Victoria, 1979, (illus.). plate no. 12; not paginated
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Helen Campbell, Colour, rhythm, design: wood & lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, 'Introduction', pg. 2, Sydney, 2010, 20 (colour illus.).
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Nicholas Draffin, Australian woodcuts and linocuts of the 1920s and 1930s, South Melbourne, 1976, 13, 64 (illus.). Collection of National Trust of Australia
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Josef Lebovic, Masterpieces of Australian printmaking, Sydney, 1987, 14, 15 (illus.). cat.no. 13
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