Charles Raymond Blackman was an Australian painter, noted for the Schoolgirl, Avonsleigh and Alice in Wonderland series of the 1950s.
13 Facts About Charles Blackman
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Charles Blackman was a member of the Antipodeans, a group of Melbourne painters that included Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval, and Clifton Pugh.
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Charles Blackman was married for 27 years to author, essayist, poet, librettist and patron of the arts Barbara Blackman.
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Charles Blackman came to notice following his move to Melbourne in the mid-1940s, where he became friends with Joy Hester, John Perceval and Laurence Hope as well as gaining the support of critic and art patron John Reed.
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Charles Blackman's work met critical acclaim through his early Schoolgirl and Alice series, the latter Blackman's conception of Lewis Carroll's most famous character.
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For some time while painting the Alice series, Charles Blackman worked as a cook at a cafe run by art dealer Georges Mora and his wife, fellow artist Mirka Mora.
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In 1960 he and his family lived in London after Charles Blackman won a Helena Rubenstein travelling scholarship, settling in Sydney upon his return five and a half years later.
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Charles Blackman lived there for a year at the same time as John Coburn, and subsequently returned often, as Paris was for him a lasting source of inspiration.
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Charles Blackman married the young artist Genevieve de Couvreur, a 19-year-old friend of his children.
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Charles Blackman divorced him after eight years, as his alcoholism grew deeper, and in 1989 he married a third wife, Victoria Bower, whom he later divorced.
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Charles Blackman lived with dementia in a rented home in Sydney.
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Charles Blackman was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to Australian art in 1977.
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Ursula Dubosarsky's novel The Golden Day was directly inspired by Charles Blackman's 1954 painting Floating Schoolgirl, which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.