Charles Blackman was born in Sydney in 1928. One of the most lyrical and emotionally immediate painters in Australian art history, he is best known for his Schoolgirls and Alice in Wonderland series — dreamlike, tender images of young women and girls moving through mysterious, half-lit worlds that shimmer between innocence and unease. His work draws deeply on personal experience, most notably his relationship with his wife Barbara, whose gradual loss of sight profoundly shaped his visual imagination and his preoccupation with interior worlds and the nature of seeing.
Blackman studied briefly at East Sydney Technical College before largely teaching himself, developing a style of soft, atmospheric colour and fluid, expressive line that became immediately recognisable. He was a member of the Antipodean group — alongside Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, and John Perceval — who in 1959 issued a manifesto defending figurative painting against the rising tide of abstraction. His commitment to the human figure and the poetic image never wavered across a long and prolific career.
His print Paris Dreaming, produced in collaboration with Fred Genis at the Kenthurst studio, reflects the romanticism and reverie that runs through all his finest work — Paris as a state of mind as much as a place, filtered through Blackman’s characteristic soft light and dreaming sensibility.
Charles Blackman died in Sydney in 2018. His work is held in every major Australian public collection.
