He is one of our most extraordinary painters, a man whose life has been dominated by landscape.
Now the work of Huddersfield-born artist David Blackburn is to be featured in a major exhibition in London.
David, 74, was born in Huddersfield and still lives in the area.
He won a scholarship to Huddersfield School of Art in the mid 1950s before going on to study at the Royal College of Art in London where he soon focused on landscape.
Earlier this week, a new exhibition of his work opened at Messum’s, a gallery in Cork Street in London’s Mayfair.
“It is a prestigious gallery which specialises in British Art since 1750 and has links in Australia where David was based for a number of years in the 1970s,” said artist Maxwell Doig, one of David’s many friends.
“The exhibition consists of 40 pictures of varying sizes and from different times in his life.
“Messum’s have produced a 46- page catalogue to accompany the show which runs until Saturday February 15.”
In an introduction to the catalogue, the gallery’s Andrea Gates quotes Sir Kenneth Clark.
He said of David: “I don’t know any artist to whom I can compare him.
“David Blackburn is not a landscape artist not an abstractionist in the ordinary sense. He is a painter of metamorphosis.”
Throughout the Seventies, David lived between Britain and Australia.
When asked what the Australian landscape meant to him he said: “I think it’s Paradise.
“ At first it was difficult to come to terms with. I couldn’t understand how one could draw where there was no apparent foreground, middle distance and background – only space.”
That fascination for the Australian landscape was quickly to exert a huge influence on his work which continued even when he returned in the Nineties to live more permanently in Huddersfield.
David continues to regard the town as his home and still enjoys walking in his home town landscape.
