Exploring the development of Elizabeth Blackadder’s art in all its richness, this revised edition of Duncan Macmillan’s 1999 book expands the account of an important artist and her significant body of work. With her oeuvre ranging through still life, landscapes and flower painting, Elizabeth Blackadder (1931-2021) was one of the best known and respected artists in the British painting tradition. The first woman to be elected to both the Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy, she exhibited widely from the 1960s and her work has been reproduced extensively. Updated to include new imagery, Duncan Macmillan’s expert text is essential reading for Blackadder’s legion of fans.
Elizabeth Blackadder was born in Falkirk in 1931. She studied at ECA from 1949 until 1954 under Robert Henderson Blyth and William Gillies inter alia and earned travelling scholarships to southern Europe and Italy. In 1956 she married artist and fellow Scottish Gallery exhibitor John Houston and began teaching in Edinburgh. She taught at Edinburgh College of Art from 1962 until her retirement in 1986. One of Scotland’s greatest artists, she also garners recognition and success in London. In 1972, Blackadder was elected member of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh and in 1976 she gained entry at the Royal Academy, London – the first woman to be elected into both institutions. In 2001, Elizabeth was made the first female Artist Limner by HRH The Queen, a position within the Royal Household unique to Scotland. One decade later, in 2011 (the year she turned 80) a major retrospective of her work opened at the National Galleries of Scotland.