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Elizabeth Blackadder
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Elizabeth Blackadder
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Dame Elizabeth Violet Blackadder, Mrs Houston, DBE, RA, RSA, HonRWA (24 September 1931 – 23 August 2021)[1][2] was a Scottish painter and printmaker. She was the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts.

Key Information

In 1962, she began teaching at Edinburgh College of Art where she continued until her retirement in 1986. Blackadder worked in a variety of media such as oil paints, watercolour, drawing, and printmaking. In her still life paintings and drawings, she considered space between objects carefully. She also painted portraits and landscapes, but her later work contains mainly her cats and flowers rendered in great detail. Her work can be seen at the Tate Gallery, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York,[3] and has appeared on a series of Royal Mail stamps.[1]

In 2012, Blackadder was selected to paint Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond's official Christmas card.[4]

Early years

[edit]

Blackadder was born and raised at 7 Weir Street, Falkirk, the third child of Thomas and Violet Isabella Blackadder. Violet Blackadder ensured Elizabeth benefited from a series of promising educational opportunities and, determined to spare her daughter the struggles she had been through, convinced her own father to support Elizabeth's training as a domestic science teacher.[5] Blackadder's father died when she was 10. Her mother died, aged 89, in 1984.[6]

She spent a substantial part of her childhood alone, due in part to a keen appetite for reading. During her teenage years Blackadder began meticulously collecting local flowers, compiling the specimens by pressing and labelling them with their full Latin names, a fascination that was to surface much later in her paintings of plants and flowers.[7]

Education

[edit]

A former pupil of Falkirk High School, she donated one of her paintings to the school on the occasion of its centenary in 1986. She later remembered the pleasure she derived from her art classes in particular, but also enjoying dissecting and drawing plants as part of her botanical studies; she spent the majority of her sixth year in the school's art room.[7] She arrived in Edinburgh in September 1949 to start on the newly approved Fine Art degree and graduated with first class honours in 1954. Blackadder studied early Byzantine art while at university, and one of the most enduring influences on her work was her tutor and prolific painter William Gillies. Blackadder spent the fourth and fifth years of her MA course concentrating on her imminent examinations; it was during this period that she met Scottish artist John Houston who was later to become her husband.[8]

The fifth and final year of Blackadder's Fine Art degree was spent at Edinburgh College of Art, where she researched throughout the year for her dissertation on William MacTaggart. She graduated in 1954 with a first-class degree and was awarded both a Carnegie travelling scholarship by the Royal Scottish Academy and an Andrew Grant Postgraduate Scholarship by Edinburgh College of Art.[9]

Career

[edit]
Flowers on an Indian Cloth

In 1954, Blackadder put the money from her Carnegie scholarship towards spending three months travelling through Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy, where she focused on classical and Byzantine art.[10] In 1962 her painting, White Still Life, Easter was given the Guthrie Award for best work by a young artist at the Royal Scottish Academy.[11]
During the 1960s she developed her interests in still life while continuing with her love of landscape by painting landscapes in France, Spain, Portugal, and Scotland, and acquired a growing reputation for her paintings of flowers, Flowers on an Indian Cloth being a notable example. During her travels to France she became more aware of the artist Henri Matisse, and under his influence she lightened her palette.

In the 1980s, she visited Japan on a number of occasions and many of her paintings at the time showed the influence of these trips.[3] First visiting in 1985, and returning the following year, Blackadder's interest in Eastern techniques and subject matter was realised in a series of vibrant oils and watercolours shown at the Mercury Gallery[12] in 1991.[13] Her desire to avoid the technical vibrancy of Tokyo took Blackadder to the Zen gardens of Kyoto; in many ways, her work depicts the principles of Zen which give paramount importance to the idea of empty space.[14] She traveled to the United States of America. Souvenirs of her travels would appear in many of her paintings.

Blackadder began working at Glasgow Print Studio in 1985, after being invited to make prints there.[15] She worked with master printmakers from that time until around 2014, working predominantly to produce etchings and screenprints with some lithographs and woodcuts. Her subject matter was dominated by cats and flowers but also included images from travels in Europe and Japan.[16]

Honours

[edit]

Appointed

[edit]

Blackadder was the first woman to be an academician of both the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Royal Scottish Academy; in 1982 she was appointed an OBE for her contribution to art[17] she was promoted to a DBE in 2003.

In 2001, she was appointed Her Majesty's Painter and Limner in Scotland.[18]

Elected

[edit]

Honorary degrees

[edit]

Honorary fellowships & memberships

[edit]

Family

[edit]

In 1956 she married painter John Houston. The couple took up residence in a large villa in The Grange district of Edinburgh, which she continued to occupy until her death in 2021.[25] She was widowed in 2008.[26]

Death

[edit]

Dame Elizabeth Blackadder died on 23 August 2021, aged 89.[2]

Exhibitions

[edit]

Solo exhibitions

[edit]
  • 57 Gallery, Edinburgh, 1959
  • The Scottish Gallery, Aitken Dott, Edinburgh, 1961
  • Mercury Gallery, London, 1965
  • The Scottish Gallery, Aitken Dott, Edinburgh 1966
  • Thames Gallery, Eton, 1966
  • Mercury Gallery, London, 1967
  • Reading Art Gallery and Museum, 1968
  • Lane Art Gallery, Bradford, 1968
  • New Paintings, Mercury Gallery, London, 14 October 1969 – 8 November 1969
  • Vaccarino Gallery, Florence, 1970
  • Scottish Arts Council Retrospective Touring Exhibition; Edinburgh, Sheffield, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Cardiff, London, 1981–82
  • Theo Waddington Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 1982
  • New Paintings, Mercury Gallery, London, 14 October 1988 – 19 November 1988
  • Elizabeth Blackadder, Aberystwth Arts Centre, 8 April 1989 – 20 May 1989, the Gardener Centre, Brighton, 3 June 1989 – 8 July 1989, Oriel Bangor Art Gallery, 15 July 1989 – 19 August 1989[14]
  • New Oils and Watercolours, Mercury Gallery, London, 22 May 1991 – 22 June 1991
  • New Work, Oils and Watercolours, Mercury Gallery, London, 22 September 1993 – 23 October 1993
  • New Oils and Watercolours, Mercury Gallery, London, 16 October 1996 – 16 November 1996
  • Elizabeth Blackadder, Mercury Gallery, London, 20 October 1999 – 20 November 1999
  • Paintings, Prints and Watercolours 1955-2000, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh 28 July 2000 – 15 September 2000

Selected group exhibitions

[edit]

Source:[27]

  • Contemporary Scottish Painting, Toronto, Canada, 1961
  • Fourteen Scottish Painters, Commonwealth Institute, London, 1963-1964
  • Three Centuries of Scottish Painting, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1968
  • The Edinburgh School, Edinburgh College of Art, 1971
  • Edinburgh Ten 30, Scottish Arts Council Exhibition touring Wales, 1975
  • British Paintings 1952-1977, Royal Academy, London, 1977
  • Painters in Parallel, Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh College of Art, 1978
  • Scottish Paintings and Tapestries, Offenburg, West Germany, 1979
  • The British Art Show, Arts Council of Great Britain touring exhibition, 1980
  • Master Weavers, Dovecot Studios' Tapestries, Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh, 1980
  • Six Scottish Painters, Graham Gallery, New York, 1982
  • Portraits on Paper, Scottish Arts Council, 1984
  • One of a Kind, Glasgow Print Studio, 1985
  • Still-Life, Harris Museum, Preston, 1985
  • Scottish Landscapes, National Gallery of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, 1986
  • The Flower Show, Stoke-on-Trent Art Gallery, touring show, 1986
  • Flowers of Scotland, Fine Art Society, Glasgow
  • Scottish Art Since 1900, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
  • Images of Paradise, Rainforest Fund, 1988
  • Within These Shores, a selection of works from the Chantrey Bequest, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1989
  • Scottish Monotypes, Glasgow, Print Studio
  • Salute to Turner, National Trust, London, 1990
  • Brush to Paper, 3 Centuries of British Watercolours, Aberdeen Art Gallery touring exhibition, 1991
  • Writing on the Wall, Tate Gallery, London, 1993
  • The Line of Tradition, National Gallery of Scotland, 1993
  • Celebration, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, 1999
  • Liberation and Tradition, Scottish Art 1963-1975, Aberdeen Art Gallery, McManus Gallery, Dundee, 1999

Collections

[edit]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Elizabeth Blackadder

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Dame Elizabeth Blackadder (24 September 1931 – 23 August 2021) was a Scottish painter and printmaker renowned for her delicate watercolours and oils depicting still lifes, flowers, cats, and landscapes. Born in , , Blackadder studied at the and from 1949 to 1954, where she trained under influential artists such as William Gillies and Sir Robin Philipson. After graduating, she received the Carnegie Travelling Scholarship and Andrew Grant Postgraduate Scholarship in 1954, which funded travels to , , and , shaping her early artistic perspective. In 1956, she married fellow painter John Houston, with whom she shared a lifelong artistic partnership. Blackadder's career spanned nearly seven decades, beginning with her first solo exhibition at the 57 Gallery in in 1959. She lectured in and at from 1962 to 1986, influencing generations of students while maintaining a prolific output of her own work. Her style evolved to emphasize meticulous detail and poetic sensitivity, particularly in floral studies and intimate domestic scenes, often inspired by extensive travels to that introduced vibrant colours and patterns into her compositions. Notable works include Flowers on an Indian Cloth (1965), held in the National Galleries of Scotland collection, and prints such as Lobster produced at the Glasgow Print Studio. A trailblazer for women in British art, Blackadder was the first female member of both the Royal Scottish Academy, elected in 1972, and the Royal Academy of Arts, elected as a full in 1976 (having been an Associate in 1971). She received the Guthrie Award from the RSA in 1962 for her painting White Still Life, Easter, along with other honours including the Watercolour Foundation Award in 1988 and the Pimms Award in 1983. In 2001, she was appointed Her Majesty's Painter and Limner in Scotland, a prestigious role she held until her death, and was made a Dame Commander of the (DBE) in 2003. Blackadder's oeuvre is represented in major collections worldwide, including over 20 works in the National Galleries of Scotland, and her legacy endures through bequests like the Blackadder Houston Bequest to the RSA established after her passing.

Early life and education

Early years

Elizabeth Blackadder was born on 24 September 1931 in , , the third child of Thomas Blackadder, an engineer who owned the local family firm Blackadder Brothers, and Violet Isabella Blackadder, a domestic science teacher. She grew up in a house at 7 Weir Street adjacent to the family engineering business, where her father's precise technical s provided an early introduction to visual representation and encouraged her initial interest in from a young age. Her mother's passion for similarly shaped her childhood, as Blackadder learned the Linnaean names of local wildflowers and began collecting and pressing them in albums, fostering a lifelong affinity for floral subjects. A quiet and introspective child, Blackadder spent much of her time alone reading books and engaging with the natural world around , activities that honed her observational skills and sparked her creative inclinations toward and . Her early sketching focused on flowers gathered from nearby fields, blending her parents' influences into personal artistic explorations. Blackadder's childhood unfolded amid the disruptions of ; in the war's early years, she stayed with her grandmother in western and attended school in for safety, before returning to to complete her education. The period was further marked by personal loss when her father died in 1941 at age 10, leaving her mother to support the family through teaching. These formative experiences in a supportive yet challenging home environment laid the groundwork for her transition to formal art studies.

Formal education

Blackadder enrolled at the in 1949, embarking on a five-year program that integrated studies with the as part of a joint fine and applied arts course. She studied under prominent instructors Robert Henderson Blyth and William Gillies, whose guidance shaped her early technical skills in and . This academic path aligned with her longstanding childhood fascination with flowers, which had initially drawn her toward artistic pursuits. In 1954, Blackadder graduated with a first-class honours degree in drawing and painting from the . That same year, she received the Carnegie Travelling Scholarship from the Royal Scottish Academy, enabling post-graduation travels across , including extended visits to , , and . During these journeys, she encountered , particularly its mosaics and patterns, which profoundly influenced her developing approach to color palettes—favoring rich, flattened tones—and compositional structures emphasizing decorative formality. She also secured an Andrew Grant Postgraduate Scholarship, extending her studies into 1955. While still engaged in her postgraduate work, Blackadder met fellow student and artist John Houston at the ; the two married in 1956, marking the close of her formal educational phase.

Professional career

Teaching roles

In 1956, Elizabeth Blackadder began teaching part-time at (ECA) for two years. In 1962, she was appointed as a full-time at ECA, where she taught for the next 24 years until her retirement in 1986. During this period, she focused on mentoring students in , , and , emphasizing the foundational importance of through hands-on demonstrations in life classes, where she would often draw alongside her students to model observational skills. Her approach, influenced by her own training under William Gillies at ECA, fostered a supportive environment that encouraged student development without ego-driven instruction. Blackadder integrated her extensive travels into her teaching, drawing on experiences from trips to , America, and particularly —where she first visited in 1985—to illustrate techniques for capturing color, pattern, and cultural nuances, thereby enhancing students' observational and analytical abilities. She played a key role in the departmental community at ECA, contributing to a nucleus of supportive staff that influenced a wide circle of students and colleagues in the school. Her tenure helped shape generations of Scottish artists, as evidenced by her lasting impact on ECA's reputation and her posthumous bequest, which funds travel awards and bursaries for painting students to support international and practice. Through these efforts, Blackadder significantly influenced the broader landscape of Scottish art education during the mid- to late .

Artistic practice and evolution

Blackadder's early artistic practice in the 1950s and 1960s centered on oil paintings, focusing on still lifes and landscapes that reflected the vibrant color and pattern sensibilities of the , particularly Samuel John Peploe, as mediated through her tutor William Gillies at . These works, such as Tuscan Landscape (1958), demonstrated an expressionist approach with bold forms and a growing interest in abstraction, influenced by broader modernist currents including Matisse and Morandi. Her technical proficiency in oils allowed for rich textural explorations, often drawing from everyday domestic scenes and natural motifs. By the 1970s, Blackadder shifted toward watercolours and , including etchings and screenprints, which enabled a lighter, more fluid expression suited to her recurring themes of cats, flowers, and intimate . This is evident in pieces like Still Life with Fan (1977), where delicate washes and precise lines captured the ephemerality of botanical subjects, marking a departure from the denser oils of her youth. , in particular, expanded her repertoire, allowing for editioned works that emphasized pattern and composition, as seen in her floral lithographs. Her teaching role at briefly informed this phase, as she developed demonstrative techniques for students in watercolour handling. Travels to in the 1980s and 1990s profoundly impacted Blackadder's practice, introducing elements of minimalism, asymmetry, and refined brushwork into her compositions, particularly in a series of works depicting . Inspired by the country's aesthetics during visits starting in 1985, she adopted Japanese paper for watercolours to achieve subtle tonal variations and spatial harmony, as in Japanese Garden, (1992 etching). These trips stimulated a deeper engagement with colour and pattern, blending Eastern restraint with her established floral and feline motifs. In her later works from the 2000s until 2021, Blackadder increasingly emphasized personal collections such as fans and kimonos, employing a lighter palette and greater spatial abstraction to evoke contemplative interiors. Examples include Still Life with Kimono, Kyoto (2002), where asymmetrical arrangements and soft gouache accents highlight collected artifacts against minimalist backgrounds. Throughout her career, she worked across multiple mediums simultaneously, using gouache for on-site travel sketches that informed larger watercolours and oils, maintaining a versatile studio practice divided between dedicated spaces for each. This multimedia approach underscored her commitment to observation and refinement, culminating in abstracted yet intimate portrayals.

Personal life

Marriage and family

Elizabeth Blackadder met the Scottish painter John Houston while both were students at in the early 1950s. They married in 1956 and initially settled in a flat on London Street in Edinburgh's New Town, later moving to a Victorian house in the city's Grange district where they shared a domestic and artistic life. The couple had no children and maintained a close, mutually supportive partnership focused on their artistic pursuits, with Houston providing encouragement for Blackadder's early travels that shaped her work. They undertook numerous collaborative trips together, including extended visits to , , , and , which enriched their inspirations and collections. Their Edinburgh home featured dedicated studios filled with an array of gathered objects such as fans, fabrics, , and oriental artifacts like Japanese masks and figures, many sourced from these journeys. Blackadder and Houston's marriage lasted 52 years until his death on 27 September 2008. Known for her quiet and reclusive disposition, Blackadder kept their family life intensely private, shunning public attention in favor of a secluded routine centered on art and home.

Later years and death

Following her retirement from teaching at in 1986, Blackadder devoted herself fully to painting, maintaining a productive studio practice in her home. She continued her regular travels to , which had begun in the and influenced her work with Eastern motifs and techniques into the following decades. After the death of her husband, John Houston, in 2008, she lived alone in their shared Victorian home on Fountainhall Road. In the , Blackadder's health began to decline, severely restricting her output by despite her ongoing commitment to studio work at home, where she created pieces inspired by her garden and collected objects. She had been unwell for some time when she died peacefully at her home on 23 August 2021, aged 89; the Scottish Academy announced her passing. A private was held, with plans for a later celebration of her life. Immediate tributes poured in from the art community, with RSA President Joyce W. Cairns describing her as "a delightful, quiet, unpretentious person and extremely modest about her work and achievements," and Scottish Gallery director Guy Peploe calling her "without question one of our greatest artists."

Artistic style and legacy

Style and influences

Elizabeth Blackadder's artistic style is characterized by the use of flat color planes, subtle tonal variations, and generous empty space, which create a sense of balance and serenity in her compositions. These elements draw inspiration from the bold yet harmonious color application of Henri Matisse's Fauvist works, encountered during her travels in , and the compositional simplicity of Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which emphasize and asymmetry. Her recurring subjects often revolve around intimate domestic still lifes featuring cats, which symbolize companionship and warmth in her , as well as meticulously rendered flowers rooted in her childhood practice of collecting and pressing specimens. Travel sketches form another key motif, capturing the play of light and texture in foreign , reflecting her observational precision honed through extensive journeys. These themes are underpinned by influences from her teacher William Gillies, who instilled a reverence for the Scottish landscape tradition with its nuanced depictions of nature, and by , admired during a 1954 scholarship trip to Greece, , and , which informed her vibrant yet restrained color palette. Blackadder's style evolved toward greater following her multiple trips to in the 1970s and 1980s, where she adopted Japanese paper for watercolors and embraced principles of impermanence, evident in her simplified forms and transient compositions that evoke . In her technical mastery of , she employed to achieve intricate fine lines that delineate form with delicacy, while screenprinting allowed for the introduction of bold, saturated colors that enhance the vibrancy of her subjects.

Legacy and recognition

Blackadder's election as the first woman to both the Royal Scottish Academy in 1972 and the Royal Academy of Arts in 1976 marked a significant breakthrough for women in the arts, inspiring subsequent generations of female artists in and internationally by demonstrating pathways to institutional recognition in a male-dominated field. Her achievements highlighted the potential for women to excel in traditional genres like and , encouraging a broader participation in professional art circles. Through her teaching at Edinburgh College of Art and her own practice, Blackadder exerted a profound influence on contemporary Scottish artists, particularly in revitalizing still life and printmaking traditions characterized by precise observation and subtle color. This impact is reflected in the work of postwar Scottish artists, and her pieces continue to feature in Scottish art education curricula to illustrate modern interpretations of these genres. Following her death in 2021, Blackadder received widespread posthumous recognition, with obituaries in The Guardian praising her as a celebrated painter of flowers and the first woman elected to both academies, while the BBC highlighted her as one of Scotland's greatest artists and a national treasure whose legacy endures in public appreciation. Recent tributes include the 2023 exhibition "A Celebration" at the Scottish Gallery, which showcased her works alongside the launch of a revised monograph, as well as ongoing exhibitions such as "A Journey Shared" with John Houston at Gracefield Arts Centre in 2024 and a retrospective at Browse & Darby in 2025, underscoring her continuing cultural relevance. Her broader footprint extends to popular media, such as the 1995 Royal Mail stamps featuring her cat illustrations, and scholarly works like Duncan Macmillan's 1999 Elizabeth Blackadder, which analyzes her contributions to Scottish art. Additionally, her 2022 bequest to the Royal Scottish Academy supports emerging artists, ensuring her influence persists institutionally.

Honours and awards

Official appointments and elections

Blackadder's distinguished career led to several prestigious official appointments and elections to leading art academies, recognizing her contributions to Scottish and British art. In 1972, she was elected an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA), becoming the first woman to achieve full membership in the institution. Five years later, in 1976, she was elected a Royal Academician (RA), marking her as the first woman from to be elected to the Royal Academy of Arts. These elections highlighted her pioneering role in breaking gender barriers within the UK's major art establishments. In 1982, Blackadder was appointed Officer of the (OBE) for services to art, an honor upgraded to Dame Commander of the (DBE) in 2003. In 2001, she received one of Scotland's most esteemed royal appointments as Her Majesty's Painter and Limner, the first woman to hold this historic position within the royal household, responsible for official portraits and artworks. Earlier in her career, Blackadder was elected to the Royal Scottish Water Colour Society (RSW) and later to the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (RGI), further affirming her standing among Scotland's artistic elite.

Honorary degrees and fellowships

Elizabeth Blackadder received numerous honorary degrees from Scottish universities, recognizing her contributions to art and education. These awards spanned from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, underscoring her influence as an artist and former lecturer at .
UniversityDegreeYear
DLitt1989
LLD1990
LLD1990
DLitt1998
DLitt2001
DUniv2002
DLitt2003
Blackadder was also granted several honorary fellowships by professional societies, reflecting her impact on artistic practice and interdisciplinary recognition. She became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in (HonFRIAS) in 1995 and held honorary membership in the Royal Watercolour Society (HonRWS, 1992) and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE, 1981). Her appointment as Dame Commander of the (DBE) in 2003 further elevated her profile, facilitating these academic and professional honors. In total, Blackadder accumulated over 10 such honors, highlighting her enduring educational and cultural significance in .

Exhibitions and collections

Solo and group exhibitions

Elizabeth Blackadder's first solo exhibition took place in 1959 at the 57 Gallery in , marking the beginning of a prolific exhibiting career that included over 20 solo shows across the . Subsequent early solo presentations were held at the Scottish Gallery in from 1961 to 1966, followed by her debut at the Mercury Gallery in in 1965. Key retrospectives highlighted milestones in her oeuvre, including a major survey at the of Modern Art in 1999 and another at the Talbot Rice Gallery, , in 2000, which encompassed paintings, prints, and watercolours from 1955 to 2000. International exposure came through solo exhibitions such as those at the Glasgow Print Studio in 1993 and Abbot Hall Art Gallery in in 1990, though her primary venues remained in and . Exhibition themes often reflected her travels, for instance, with Japanese-inspired still lifes and interiors prominent in shows during the 1990s following her 1985 visit to . A Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition in 1981 further showcased her evolving style across multiple venues. Blackadder participated in numerous group exhibitions, including regular appearances in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions from the 1970s onward, where her works were displayed annually until her later years. She featured in mixed shows at galleries like the Mercury Gallery and Scottish Gallery throughout her career, often alongside contemporaries from the School. Posthumous tributes continued her visibility, with a retrospective at the Print Studio in 2022 focusing on her , a major survey at the Scottish Gallery in 2023 spanning six decades, and an exhibition in association with the Royal Scottish Academy at Browse & Darby in from to November 2025.

Public and private collections

Blackadder's works are held in numerous public collections across the and internationally, reflecting her prominence in modern British art. In the UK, her paintings and prints feature prominently in institutions such as the Gallery in , which holds Still Life with Pomegranates (1963), a exemplifying her delicate use of color and composition; the of Modern Art in ; the at the ; Aberdeen Art Gallery; and the Government Art Collection. Other notable UK holdings include the , Leeds City Art Gallery, Manchester City Art Galleries, and the Art Gallery. Internationally, Blackadder's art is represented in major museums including the in New York, which owns Dark Hill, Fifeshire (1960), and the in . Overall, numerous of her works are in public ownership worldwide, spanning oils, watercolors, and prints that highlight her focus on still lifes, flowers, and landscapes. In private collections, Blackadder's pieces are cherished by prominent collectors, including the Fleming Collection, which includes works such as Flowers and Red Table (1969) and Cat and Flowers (1981). Additionally, through her role as Her Majesty's Limner for Scotland from 2001, commissioned works entered royal holdings, underscoring her ties to elite private patronage. Following Blackadder's death in 2021, her estate made significant posthumous contributions to public collections, including a bequest of artworks to the Royal Scottish Academy in 2022, enhancing its holdings of her oeuvre.

References

  1. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/elizabeth-blackadder
  2. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/elizabeth-blackadder-ra
  3. https://www.royalscottishacademy.org/artists/350-elizabeth-blackadder-rsa/overview/
  4. https://artuk.org/discover/artists/blackadder-elizabeth-v-19312021
  5. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/08/25/dame-elizabeth-blackadder-outstanding-scottish-artist-acclaimed/
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  7. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/aug/25/dame-elizabeth-blackadder-obituary
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  50. https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2001/february/headline_29920_en.html
  51. https://www.stir.ac.uk/events/graduation/honorary-graduates/
  52. https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/honorary-degrees-24-27-june/
  53. https://www.royalwatercoloursociety.co.uk/history/members/
  54. https://www.jennaburlingham.com/artists/225-elizabeth-blackadder/
  55. https://portlandgallery.com/usr/library/documents/main/artists/53/elizabeth-blackadder-cv.pdf
  56. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12186000.fine-wide-blackadder-retrospective/
  57. https://www.abebooks.com/9780902989733/Elizabeth-Blackadder-Scottish-Arts-Council-0902989731/plp
  58. https://www.hereglasgow.com/elizabeth-blackadder-retrospective-exhibition/
  59. https://www.lundhumphries.com/blogs/news-and-events/exhibitions-and-launches-elizabeth-blackadder
  60. https://www.moma.org/collection/artists/585
  61. https://flemingcollection.com/collection/search-the-collection/flowers-and-red-table-1969-65
  62. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/cat-and-flowers-277222
  63. https://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/articles/dame-elizabeth-blackadder-bequeaths-ps7m-to-support-artists-and-architects
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