NGV searches for missing Charles Blackman paintings
15 May 2006
The National Gallery of Victoria is appealing to Australians far and wide to come forward with any information they may have on four Charles Blackman paintings that have not been seen in public for many years.
It is believed the paintings are owned by private collectors around Australia. The paintings were all created between 1956 and 1957 and are part of Blackman’s Alice in Wonderland series. Very few paintings in the series are held in public Galleries and all have become very sought after in recent decades.
The NGV is hoping to reunite these missing artworks to complete the famous series of 46 paintings for a major exhibition in August, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the series. It will be the first time paintings in the series have been bought together for an exhibition.
The four missing works the NGV is searching for are Drink Me (1956), Curiouser and curiouser (1956), Alice among the trees (1956) and Alice’s journey (1957). Three of the four paintings have not been seen publicly for approximately 25 years.
NGV Director, Dr Gerard Vaughan, says: “Charles Blackman is one of Australia’s most important artists and his Alice in Wonderland series is a much loved and admired one, on par with a significant sequence of Australian works, including Sidney Nolan’s Kelly series, Arthur Boyd’s Bride series and Albert Tucker’s Images of Modern Evil series.”
“We are appealing to anyone who owns the paintings to let us know, and to consider lending them to this important retrospective, anonymity guaranteed, and to give everyone the opportunity to see the entire series reunited together for the very first time. The reuniting of all these works will be an important and fascinating event in the history of Australian art.”
In 1956, Blackman heard Lewis Carroll’s extraordinary and bizarre tale of Alice in Wonderland via a talking book that his wife, Barbara Blackman, was listening to whilst suffering progressive blindness. The story of Alice moving through a series of irrational situations, constantly frustrated by various events, paralleled Barbara’s own experiences and Blackman painted the Alice pictures for his wife ‘to give sight to her poetry’.
NGV Curator of Australian Art (20th century), Geoffrey Smith says: “With their bold colours and highly imaginative use of motifs, from both Carroll’s fantastic journey into the imagination together with aspects from Blackman’s personal life, the artist produced challenging images that are simultaneously amusing and psychologically disturbing.”
Those with any information on the paintings should call the NGV switchboard on (03) 8620 2222.
Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland will be on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 11 August 2006.
