Lot Essay
Blackshaw's Head of Travellers are important during this time for several reasons. Here we have the artist empathising with people on the edge of society. They are non-conformist, partly to be feared and admired at the same time. Their colourful disposition strikes a chord with Blackshaw, who in many ways is 'l'etranger', or the 'outsider' himself, by the dint of being a loner and an artist. What fired Blackshaw was the rawness in their heads, just the way they would 'paint their wagons up'. Art critic Mike Catto wrote of them in Basil Blackshaw - Painter, 1985: 'The superb Head of Travellers were far from lovely - no stage Irish rustics these; instead the artist gave us stripped-down, direct faces. There was an effect almost of a blurred out-of-focus photograph in these faces, a sensation which has echoed in many of his figures over the years'. American art critic Elliott Sherman who wrote of these heads which went on tour in the nineties said: 'Head of Travellers series evinces an eye for the survivor. Whether the blonde with a smear of mouth distinctly at odds with demure clothes, or the profile of a weathered man with a porkpie hat set atop an unruly bush of yellow hair, the most defined aspect of each traveller is their eyes. Never quite meeting ours, their eyes are slightly downcast and guarded, yet clearly canny and not missing a thing. All of Blackshaw's portraits, while divergent in style, remind us why people-watching can be so interesting'.
Blackshaw knew each and everyone of these characters intimately. While these heads are the heads of notional people they were heads burnt into his memory. He drank with them. He communed with them. He identified with their way of life on the edge of society. These were characters whose existence he wanted to record in paint simply because they interested him. He said 'I knew the Boswells. I used to drink with them. Many of these people came and camped for months on what we called "the gypsy road". These were different characters from different families. Head of Traveller V (Fat Bob) "was more of a markets man than a traveller"'.
We are very grateful to Eamonn Mallie, biographer of Basil Blackshaw, author of Blackshaw, Belfast, 2003, for providing the catalogue entries for lots 256-263, 300 and 302.
Blackshaw knew each and everyone of these characters intimately. While these heads are the heads of notional people they were heads burnt into his memory. He drank with them. He communed with them. He identified with their way of life on the edge of society. These were characters whose existence he wanted to record in paint simply because they interested him. He said 'I knew the Boswells. I used to drink with them. Many of these people came and camped for months on what we called "the gypsy road". These were different characters from different families. Head of Traveller V (Fat Bob) "was more of a markets man than a traveller"'.
We are very grateful to Eamonn Mallie, biographer of Basil Blackshaw, author of Blackshaw, Belfast, 2003, for providing the catalogue entries for lots 256-263, 300 and 302.