Girl in black

item details

NameGirl in black

ProductionMichael Blaker; artist; circa 1959

Classificationprints, etchings, aquatints, works on paper

Materialspaper

Materials Summaryetching and aquatint

Techniquesetching, aquatint

Dimensionsplate: 301mm (width), 402mm (height)

Registration Number1959-0023-20

Credit lineGift of Sir John Ilott, 1959

Overview

Michael Blaker (b. 1928) studied at the Brighton School of Art (1945-49 and 1956-60) under Leslie Cole, Charles Knight and others, and is a writer and artist specialising in etching. In earlier days, he ran his own gallery in Avery Row, New Bond Street (1951-53), published four issues of his own Art Gazette, and organised an "Artists under Thirty" exhibition at the RBA (Royal Society of British Artists) Galleries (1953). Later he was for ten years editor/designer of the Printmakers Journal, the annual magazine of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, of which he is now a Senior Fellow. He has also contributed many articles to Printmaking Today, of which he is an Editorial Consultant, and written extensively for the Artist Magazine, Leisure Painter and Pictures and Prints. He has work in the Tate Gallery and Victoria & Albert Museum Archive Collections, and has exhibited etchings and paintings in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. Over a long and productive career, he has many other publications and works to his credit. He now lives in Ramsgate, on the Isle of Thanet, where his wife Catriona is an author, and a leading light of the Pugin Society, with a particular interest in the Gothic Revival and in nineteenth-century architecture generally.

Girl in black is an untypically 'trendy' print to have been in the collection of Sir John Ilott, who presented several hundreds of them to the National Art Gallery. Possibly he acquired it as a Print Club presentation plate. The girl's hairstyle and slightly sullen, detached expression make her very much a 'modern' one of the period (c. 1959), emphasised by the cigarette end she appears to hold. She would make a suitable companion for one of the alienated 'Angry Young Men' writers, who were then in their element. Ilott would have very likely admired Blaker's excellent use of both etching and aquatint techniques.

See: 'Michael Blaker, R.E.', The Victorian Web, http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/blaker.html

Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art February 2018