World-renowned artist, teacher and Neo-Fandaliist David Blackwood has died. Blackwood died Saturday at his home in Port Hope, Ontario, surrounded by family after a long illness. His work presented working life in the port of Newfoundland as something vast and dark, with mysterious depths beneath every surface. Blackwood’s death comes less than a month after the loss of another equally legendary Newfoundland and Labrador artist, Christopher Pratt. Etching and aquatint on wove paper 67.2 x 82.8 cm Gift of David and Anita Blackwood, Port Hope, Ontario. (David Blackwood/Gallery Art of Ontario)
A Newfoundland mythology
Born in 1941 in Wesleyville, Blackwood grew up among people who worked at sea and would continue to inspire his work throughout his life. An artistic prodigy from a young age, Blackwood received a Newfoundland Government Centennial Scholarship to study at the Ontario College of Art. At the age of 23, his work was exhibited in the National Gallery. Blackwood is perhaps best known for his blue-black engravings and prints, which often depict scenes of harbor life, moors, icebergs, whales and men at sea, all formed by dark shadows and stark white light. “David Blackwood created a mythology about Newfoundland,” says Emma Butler, a gallerist and friend of the Blackwoods. The Emma Butler Gallery opened in 1987 with the work of David Blackwood. “People know about these amazing stories of shipwrecks and sealing disasters, muttering stories and pictures of broken tables and flakes and all that stuff.” “People know Newfoundland through the images of David Blackwood,” he said. Etching and aquatint on wove paper 62 x 92.3 cm Gift of David and Anita Blackwood, Port Hope, Ontario. (David Blackwood/Gallery Art of Ontario) Some of his most recognizable works are the series of prints made in the 1960s and 1970s, The Lost Party, detailing the 1914 sealing disaster in Newfoundland with eerie scenes of seals on boats, a dark, opulent world around their. With over 50 prints in the series, it remains one of the largest thematically linked series of prints in Canadian history. Blackwood’s work has been exhibited internationally, with over 90 solo exhibitions and two major retrospectives. His works are featured in nearly every major public gallery and collection across Canada, from The Rooms Provincial Gallery to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, and even the Queen Elizabeth II Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. In 2000, the Art Gallery of Ontario created the Blackwood Research Center based on a large collection of his works. He was the subject of the National Film Board’s 1976 documentary Blackwood, which ranked the artist’s prints alongside those of Rembrandt, Goya and Dürer. The film was nominated for an Oscar. Blackwood was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1993 and to the Order of Ontario in 2003. Etching and aquatint on wove paper 43.9 x 88 cm Gift of David and Anita Blackwood, Port Hope, Ontario. (David Blackwood/Art Gallery of Ontario) (David Blackwood/Art Gallery of Ontario)
First and foremost a Newfoundland
Emma Butler, who had spoken to Blackwood shortly before his death, says he was still talking about Newfoundland and aspects of the land he wanted to depict in his art. “He was a complex man. He was well educated. He was well read. A huge, huge library. He was, I would say, first and foremost a Newfoundlander even in his later years. Everything he would say when I talked about this place ». “It was all about his work. And he was very ill for a long time, but he was determined to get better, because he had more work to do.” Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
