Barbara Blackman was an Australian writer and essayist, poet, librettist, radio broadcaster and interviewer, artist, artist's model and activist and philanthropist, who was a patron of the arts and a cultural polymath.
17 Facts About Barbara Blackman
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Barbara Blackman was married to artist Charles Blackman from 1952 and 1978, who was best known for his Alice in Wonderland paintings, and she featured as an artist model for Blackman.
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Barbara Blackman attended Brisbane State High School where she developed what was to be a lifelong love of music, particularly Shostakovich.
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Barbara Blackman developed an early interest in writing, and was the youngest member of a group of writers called the Barjaj Group, which included Pamela Crawford, Judith Wright and Thea Astley.
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Barbara Blackman had poor eyesight from an early age an in 1950, aged 21, was diagnosed with optic atrophy.
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Barbara Blackman's vision deteriorated rapidly and she became completely legally blind.
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Barbara Blackman became an artist's model who was in high demand by many leading modernist artists in Australia such as Clifton Pugh and Fred Williams, and appears in many of Charles Barbara Blackman's works, including his Alice In Wonderland series of paintings.
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Barbara Blackman lived a self-described unconventional life according to her autobiography.
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Barbara Blackman exhibited a wide range of intellectual interests and abilities.
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Barbara Blackman's work is highly valued, as evidenced in the collection of correspondence between Barbara Blackman and her friend, the poet Judith Wright, published in 2007, and in the list of numerous resources written by her and about her that has been collected in the Australian Women's Register.
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Barbara Blackman was a notable as a blind activist and pioneer of radio for printed handicap and was a member of the Blind Citizens's Committee Society since 1976.
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Barbara Blackman was awarded the Australasian Sound Recording Association's Award for Excellence in Broadcasting and was considered as a significant record of "20th Century Art History".
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Barbara Blackman married the Australian artist Charles Blackman, in 1952, whom she had met in 1949, at his 21st birthday and they lived in Melbourne, supported by her income as an artist's model and from the blind pension and his earnings as a kitchen hand, most of which went to pay for costs associated with maintaining Charles' studio.
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Barbara Blackman later married Frenchman Marcel Veldhoven and moved with him to a retreat on the South Coast of NSW.
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When this relationship ended in March 2002, she moved to Canberra, where Adrian Keenan, a former music teacher who once resided with the Barbara Blackman's became her carer.
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Barbara Blackman, was brought up as christian and was an admirer of different cultures and religions, in her later years she was interested in Jungian philosophy.
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Barbara Blackman died at Clare Holland House in Canberra on 4 October 2024, at the age of 95.