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Lot Essay
Charles Blackman loves the in-between times of day, especially the mystery and enchantment of twilight and early evening when anything can happen. Here, in this mature and moonlit example of his famous Schoolgirl series, the flying saucer hat of the secretive schoolgirl seems poised for take-off, as if called by the distant tower and magical steps of rose-coloured rooftops.
The large white hat, like a moonlight mushrrom with wings, hovers just below the fence-line, while the reality of the fence-line itself is submerged in the overall blueness of the painting. The precociousness of her hat contrasts with the shy modesty and small shadow of the enigmatic schoolgirl in her uniform 'straitjacket' tunic and blue stockings.
Charles Blackman's subject of uniformed schoolgirls was sparked by his real life environment in Hawthorn, an area peppered with private schools, where his coach-house stable studio backed on to a lane used by uniformed children walking to and from school. The schoolgirl theme also resonated with Blackman's insight into the feminine psyche - a legacy of vivid childhood memories of his mother and sisters.
These memories were revived through his reading of the literature of childhood fantasy, with the emphasis on mainly French novels of adolescent eroticism, such as the Claudine schoolgirl series by Colette. Blackman also absorbed the lyrical verse of semi-blind poet John Shaw Neilson (1872 - 1942), admiring especially his emotional use of colour: "I thought they were very beautiful," he said, "and very akin to what I felt myself in some sort of way... the frailty of their image... and their being a kind of receptacle... of very delicate emotional auras." His first solo exhibition carried a stanza from a Neilson poem about schoolgirls hastening through the light and touching the unknowable Divine.
Blackman's practice of reading aloud to his low-visioned wife, Barbara, expanded his imaginative experience by revealing the whole language of human emotions. As he told ABC radio interviewer, Robert Peach, in 1973: "Reading out loud is a different sort of experience to reading to oneself because the savouring of the words and the slowing down of the pace allows images to hang in the air. You absorb things on a different level... If you read out a book of poems you have to read them slowly and gently and with a certain amount of precision."
Triggered by the reality of his environment, Blackman's Schoolgirl paintings and drawings are infused with lyricism and with a deep sense of psychology. Dream and reality combine in this series as Blackman's schoolgirls are transformed into different emotional states and identities.
The present painting belongs in the company of The Shadow 1953 (MOMA at Heide) and Prone Figure 1953 (MOMA at Heide). It is also related to many drawings. Prone Figure was painted between September and November 1953 and bought by Sunday and John Reed in early 1954. The clarity of the forms in the present Schoolgirl also links it to the flick-books Blackman made in 1954, such as 'Hat takes a holiday.'
We are grateful to Felicity St John Moore for providing this catalogue entry.
The large white hat, like a moonlight mushrrom with wings, hovers just below the fence-line, while the reality of the fence-line itself is submerged in the overall blueness of the painting. The precociousness of her hat contrasts with the shy modesty and small shadow of the enigmatic schoolgirl in her uniform 'straitjacket' tunic and blue stockings.
Charles Blackman's subject of uniformed schoolgirls was sparked by his real life environment in Hawthorn, an area peppered with private schools, where his coach-house stable studio backed on to a lane used by uniformed children walking to and from school. The schoolgirl theme also resonated with Blackman's insight into the feminine psyche - a legacy of vivid childhood memories of his mother and sisters.
These memories were revived through his reading of the literature of childhood fantasy, with the emphasis on mainly French novels of adolescent eroticism, such as the Claudine schoolgirl series by Colette. Blackman also absorbed the lyrical verse of semi-blind poet John Shaw Neilson (1872 - 1942), admiring especially his emotional use of colour: "I thought they were very beautiful," he said, "and very akin to what I felt myself in some sort of way... the frailty of their image... and their being a kind of receptacle... of very delicate emotional auras." His first solo exhibition carried a stanza from a Neilson poem about schoolgirls hastening through the light and touching the unknowable Divine.
Blackman's practice of reading aloud to his low-visioned wife, Barbara, expanded his imaginative experience by revealing the whole language of human emotions. As he told ABC radio interviewer, Robert Peach, in 1973: "Reading out loud is a different sort of experience to reading to oneself because the savouring of the words and the slowing down of the pace allows images to hang in the air. You absorb things on a different level... If you read out a book of poems you have to read them slowly and gently and with a certain amount of precision."
Triggered by the reality of his environment, Blackman's Schoolgirl paintings and drawings are infused with lyricism and with a deep sense of psychology. Dream and reality combine in this series as Blackman's schoolgirls are transformed into different emotional states and identities.
The present painting belongs in the company of The Shadow 1953 (MOMA at Heide) and Prone Figure 1953 (MOMA at Heide). It is also related to many drawings. Prone Figure was painted between September and November 1953 and bought by Sunday and John Reed in early 1954. The clarity of the forms in the present Schoolgirl also links it to the flick-books Blackman made in 1954, such as 'Hat takes a holiday.'
We are grateful to Felicity St John Moore for providing this catalogue entry.