The major exhibition in 2011 at the Scottish National Gallery highlights the work of one of Scotland’s most accomplished living artists, Dame Elizabeth Blackadder.

Celebrating the artist’s 80th birthday, the exhibition presents her work in all its diversity, ranging from the much-loved studies after nature, to lesser-known paintings which will challenge expectations.  This landmark exhibition spans six decades of Blackadder’s career, beginning with her work in the 1950s and culminating in her most recent paintings.

Since the opening of the exhibition that launched her career in 1959, Elizabeth Blackadder has become renowned for her paintings, prints and drawings.  Her work is both cherished by the public whilst being highly respected by the art establishment. She was the first woman artist to be elected to both the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy and in 2001 she was honoured with the title Her Majesty the Queen’s Painter and Limner in Scotland, a role that began with Sir Henry Raeburn almost 200 years ago.

Born in Falkirk in 1931, Blackadder studied at Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art. Her early work was shaped by her acquaintance with the Scottish painters William Gillies, William MacTaggart and Anne Redpath, whom she met through her studies.  Blackadder’s outstanding technical ability was visible from the outset and she thrived in an environment which focused on the primacy of drawing and observation. The exhibition begins with early drawings of the Italian landscape and its architecture, shown alongside portraits from the period. This will include one of Blackadder herself completed when she was just twenty. These striking works still appear fresh over fifty years later, demonstrating her innate ability with paint and line.

From the 1960s onwards, the motif of still-life became key to her development.  Like other individual artistic voices of her generation, such as David Hockney and Howard Hodgkin, Blackadder quickly saw the possibilities offered by the vibrant colour and dynamism of Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism. Her subsequent works injected new life into the Edinburgh School tradition of finding subject matter in the surrounding world. Dazzling canvases, such as Flowers and a Red Table, fill the central room of the exhibition, revealing the energising effect these developments have had on her art.

Blackadder’s studies from nature are perhaps the best-known and best-loved of all her work.  They illustrate a fascination which has continued throughout her long career; the desire to capture the world around her, with no subject being too small or insignificant.   Under Blackadder’s analytical eye the modest form of a flower or shell is transformed into a symphony of colour, shape and rhythm. These works are celebrated with a room dedicated to her drawings, prints and especially her watercolours produced from nature.

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