Artist Details

Basil Blackshaw

Portfolio

Evening on the Lagan

Basil Blackshaw, who lives in County Down, is now recognized as one of Ireland’s leading artists. He was recently the subject of a critically-acclaimed retrospective at the Ulster Museum.

Born in 1932 in Dundonald, he’s a graduate from Belfast College of Art and has exhibited extensively since 1956 in Ireland and internationally. His works have shown at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, at Rosc and at Tate London.

Blackshaw has also been the subject of biographical studies by Brian Ferran, the painter and former head of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and the well-known Irish art critic and curator S. B. Kennedy.

An interesting character, fond of horses and dogs, the painter’s life still centres on his home patch, the countryside of County Down, which is a major source of inspiration.

Professor Anne Crookshank, who lives here in Ramelton, has remarked that Blackshaw painting in the gallery is an unusual one - “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a dark-toned Blackshaw”. It’s from the collection of a good friend of Blackshaw’s, the artist Cherith McKinstry (1928 – 2004), who was in the same year in Belfast College of Art.