Charles Blackman

Sandra McGrath Blackman interview, December 11th, 1976. Are you listening, little tape? Stop. Is that The Garden of the White Cat?

Charles Blackman That's right.

Sandra McGrath Oh, no.

Charles Blackman You wouldn't believe it, actually. When I painted this place, I opened the doors and there it was. Really crazy.

Sandra McGrath Across the road, The Garden of the White Cat. You do realise you've got to photograph this, don't you, Robert? The Garden of the White Cat over here.

Charles Blackman She said boldly. Well, the whole point about Colette's life was that she was, she was married when she was very young, when she was 17. And she had this gigantic, long plait. It was like a huge snake. And she had a beautiful mother, and the mother brought her up in this garden. Yes, well, if you like, except it was a domestic garden about 300 miles south of Paris. She met this man, Willy, and he married her. They went to live in Paris, and he locked her up for 10 years and made her write. And signed all his books, signed all her books himself. He was an extraordinary man. You must read the story yourself. Well, he was a professional, um, literary person. He never wrote a book, he couldn't write books. He'd write off to someone and say, look, I've got got this good idea, please, I'm, I'm, I'm so busy, you just must do me a précis on it. He'd get this précis back, and then he'd say, look, I had this really terrific idea, Marcel, and he sent it off to Marcel, look, I've done the précis, do you think you have a bash at improving it? He'd get this back, and he'd send it off to someone else. He had all these people working for him, and he'd pay them X pages, X amount of dollars per page, which is actually quite little, but still. Then he ended up by getting it back from someone, and when it was a finished book, he'd send it to the printers and sign it, and that'd be his book.

Sandra McGrath And that was Colette's husband?

Charles Blackman That was Colette's husband. Then he met her, of course, and she wrote all these books. One day he said, why don't you put down some of your thoughts about your schoolgirl life? You see. So she wrote these books in, in an old schoolgirls' exercise books, called Claudine. And so, two years later, he looked at them, threw them in the, in the desk, said, look, that's no good. And two years later, he picked them up quite accidentally one Saturday afternoon and said, what a fool I am. And rushed round to the printers with them and got them published, and of course they're a fantastic success. She wrote at least a dozen, called Claudine in Love, Claudine in Paris, Claudine Married, Claudine, etc., etc., etc. And then he adapted one of the novels for a play. And so he then put her in it on the Paris stage, and it was a smash hit, ran for kind of two years and stuff. All the time she was writing. Then she decided that she couldn't stand it a minute longer because she really was a great writer, not just a writer. And so she left him, and she went on the stage as a music-hall artiste for a couple of years, and then she gave that up and started writing. She met actually a, a, a the editor of a French newspaper who she married, and had a baby first time and started writing all the books. And then she then wrote things like Chéri, and The Last of Chéri, and, and, um, etc. So I've always been very involved with her, in lots of ways. And I suppose I started off thinking about looking at that garden over the road, if you like. But, uh... You have to read her books.

Sandra McGrath What do you think is the best one to read?

Charles Blackman Well, there's a good book out, actually, which is, which is quite a sort of thing I don't really agree with, but, uh, I quite like reading it out to, uh, Barbara, and I quite like, um, flipping through it. It's called, uh, Earthly Paradise. And all it really is is the story of her life taken from her books. Someone's just put, put it all together.

Sandra McGrath I've got to find my, I'm like a cat, you know, I've got to find my spot before I can sort of relax. I've found my, my chair, my... Oh, I've found it now. Can I sit...

Charles Blackman A bowl of milk.

Sandra McGrath A bowl of milk! Can I sit here?

Charles Blackman Yes.

Sandra McGrath Just where you want me. Now, yeah, that's it. Now, now, now here we go.

Charles Blackman Well, that's it. That's Colette.

Sandra McGrath And you just started working on this?

Charles Blackman Well, no, well, let me just finish a little bit so you kind of get the picture before you actually look at the picture, so to speak, because it's very hard to explain, and I don't really think people need to know, but I think these pictures need a bit of explaining. Um, uh, I had the idea, um, about three or four years ago of doing a series of, of prints of poets. And I did one of, uh, of Rimbaud, which I thought was quite good, which George Mora owns. And, uh, then I did one of, um, uh, Verlaine. And then I wanted to do one of John Keats, but there weren't any photographs of John Keats.

Sandra McGrath Really?

Charles Blackman I can't find any that you can actually sort of kind of get an image from. So I found that you just couldn't do it. So then I sort of did a little set of paintings on Scott Fitzgerald, who I like very much. And I like Zelda, you see, because she's another crazy lady. And then, um, uh, I thought, well, I can't do any poets, but I can do some pictures about Colette's life, which I was always reading actually moved me very much. And so I did all these up in the country. And so my big bearded builder mate, the bloke who built this room, came round and he said, what are you doing? I'm doing all these pictures of this French actress. He said, in the middle of the Australian bush, hang on. Anyhow, that's that.

Sandra McGrath They're uniquely subtle on there, though. I think it's interesting the way you sort of relate with the Alice series. It just seems to me that it relates very much to that series.

Charles Blackman Well, Sandra, I couldn't really tell you whether, I don't think any painter can tell you whether what he does is good or bad. Uh, and it's not really meant to be like that, anyhow. You do what it is that, that wills up inside you as well as you can. I think. Sometimes things never wind up inside, and sometimes you just do things because they look good.

Sandra McGrath It's a sort of, um, metamorphosing of the sort of Alice into the Colette, isn't it?

Charles Blackman Well, I don't know anything about that, but I mean I like the drawing of her as a music-hall artist, and I like I like her getting to get married.

Sandra McGrath Yes, I think that's splendid.

Charles Blackman I think that's quite a good drawing. I think that's, uh... And, of course, it suddenly dawned on me one day when I was driving down there, down after I'd read all these bloody books and done these drawings, was that, um, that's meant to be Sido, her mother. Sido, her mother, and there's Sido in the garden. That, uh, the thing which really actually, um, uh, I'm seeking out was schoolgirls, which I first started painting. I'll get you the early schoolgirl show, didn't I?

Sandra McGrath I know them, I know them very well. I'd love to see it, but I know the big hats.

Charles Blackman That's right, yeah.

Sandra McGrath I remember seeing one when I first came to Australia, and the whole hat was almost the whole picture.

Charles Blackman When did you first come to Australia?

Sandra McGrath It was in Rudy Komon's back room.

Charles Blackman Yes, would be, yeah.

Sandra McGrath And, uh, I saw it then.

Charles Blackman The man who sort of, when I first painted them actually, Dr Cunningham Dax, the head of mental health in Victoria, said I needed to go to hospital.

Sandra McGrath Why?

Charles Blackman Well, the painting was so screwball, he thought that I was obviously, you know, needed treatment.

Sandra McGrath He'd have a whole hospital full of artists now.

Charles Blackman Yes, he would. Yes, we'd all have a little cell each.

Sandra McGrath John got this idea, that old mansion that's over on the point, near Watson's Bay, this big white house should be turned over like a retired seamen's home, that it should be taken over by...

Charles Blackman God, you should teeter up and say, paint, paint. And John Olsen would say, that's okay, baby. I don't think I could stand it.

Sandra McGrath It might be funny, though. In years to come, that might be a proper old...

Charles Blackman Who would sit at the head of the table?

Sandra McGrath I guess whoever's most, uh, with it that day.

Charles Blackman Who's with it, yeah. We'd all prop prop Perceval up, you know.

Sandra McGrath Perceval, yeah. Who would stand, Rapotec?

Charles Blackman Stan, no.

Sandra McGrath He could be, he could be Godfather.

Charles Blackman He'd come out in a dress every morning.

Sandra McGrath He could be Godfather.

Charles Blackman Bill! And Stan would say, God bless you! God bless you, boys! Poor old Stan, what a tragedy.

Sandra McGrath Actually, I think it would make a marvellous story, that one.

Charles Blackman Yes, it's a good idea, if, if you could get...

Sandra McGrath Federico isn't alive, is he? It's got a great view, too. Beautiful gardens. Just think how happy you'll all be when you're in your 80s. Um, the Old Masters Home, it could be called.

Charles Blackman That's, got a good name for a book. Yes.

Sandra McGrath Colette used to dance, too, didn't she? She had a beautiful figure, I think I heard.

Charles Blackman Well, she first started dancing because she met this woman called Missy, who was a camp, she was a comtesse, French comtesse. And she was, uh, camp as Chloe. I don't know, she was countess or comtesse, C-O-M-T-E or whatever it is, I don't know what it is. You know, she was...

Sandra McGrath It's comtesse, Charles. Comtesse.

Charles Blackman Well, she was a comte. She could have been a countess, but, you know, she was she dressed as a man, the whole sort of thing.

Sandra McGrath Oh, I see, she wanted to be a man.

Charles Blackman Yeah, and so, uh, she, uh, put on this play with with Colette in it about sort of lesbians. And, uh, the whole audience sort of went along, as as French always do, of course, they always get worked up about things. Everybody turned up to see Colette, who was famous because of, uh, all of the Claudine sort of things. And, um, halfway through the play, Colette, who was an alarming woman, you know, quite a strange sort of woman, gave this woman a terrific smash, kiss. Sort of put her hand up, just had that feeling, her fanny and all this sort of stuff, of course, with the whole audience stood up and walked out. Really crazy.

Sandra McGrath Where how did Colette end up? What was the...

Charles Blackman Ah, well...

Sandra McGrath ...tragic finale?

Charles Blackman Well, it wasn't actually tragic, because it was very beautiful in lots of ways. The French government gave her a little room up above the Palais-Royal, where she lived there with her paperweights and her cat, and wrote.

Sandra McGrath That's, the cats, that's, haven't I seen a photograph? There's a photograph of her with cats all around her.

Charles Blackman Very likely, yes.

Sandra McGrath And she she was in bed a lot, wasn't she?

Charles Blackman Well, she was arthritic.

Sandra McGrath Oh, is that it? Yes.

Charles Blackman I'd hate to have to do that.

Sandra McGrath I think he does, too.

Charles Blackman Sitting on the floor.

Sandra McGrath I don't think he can...

Charles Blackman I always think photographs stab the moment.

Sandra McGrath Dead.

Charles Blackman Murder the moment, yeah.

Sandra McGrath Can be murdered in time or murderer in the, in the ambiance.

Charles Blackman Well...

Sandra McGrath That's right. My mind is churning out sort of that, the whole, the whole idea of the, of the, of all the women that are in your paintings, the the female scenes through it all, female figures through it. Another sort of theme through it, yes.

Charles Blackman Well, it's funny about it, I suppose, because I had a mother and three sisters and no father, probably all started. Actually, Peter Travis was quite interesting. Peter Travis said, um, I used to go to school with you, Charles. I said, did you? And he said, uh, we went to, uh, to to Seaforth Primary School, and, uh, he said we had this amazing teacher called Miss Bacon. And, uh, she, um, said, all you children can paint all your desks the colour that you like.

Sandra McGrath Oh, how revolutionary.

Charles Blackman So everybody painted red, blue, I painted mine black, he told me this. And so, uh, after I'd painted the, uh, the desk black, uh, she said, well, now I'd like you to paint a picture of your mother. And I thought, that's where it all started, you know, that particular moment by fixation or whatever it is, you know. Painting a picture of my mother on a black desk.

Sandra McGrath Where were you actually, I want to change you into this chair, because I think it's more poetic. I know Robert won't like, I know I hope Robert I know Robert won't like me changing his composition around. Look at his face. If I put the chair here, is it all right?

Charles Blackman Don't tell me I'm posing for you now.

Sandra McGrath No, no, it's that it's just that I think the chair is more elegant. Oh, there's nothing wrong in the picture.

Charles Blackman I think Robert was here one day and I was sort of, you know, doing a bit of painting. I actually got into the room and walked back and stood on his toe.

Sandra McGrath And he prides himself on being rather mouse-like. In fact, he's knocked down everything in the room today. Tell me, uh, I really should know this, Charles, when you're talking about being brought up by a mother and three sisters, what happened to the father?

Charles Blackman He, he left my mother when I was four. They were really actually, and I can still remember their terrible rows, they were so alike, actually. They were both lovely people, both very volatile, and sort of fine, that sort of thing. And my mother was a terrific human being, really. She's, what, now 75, she's still kind of, uh, dances and does handsprings, really quite amazing, you know, sort of thing. She's getting pretty old now.

Sandra McGrath What did your father do?

Charles Blackman He was an engineer. He was actually a printer. He used to operate those huge, um, colour printing machines. I suppose they'd be called colour- colour printing machines. They'd do giant sort of photographs and a sort of kind of display. It's called offset printing works, or something like that. Offset printers.

Sandra McGrath Did he keep turning up on the scene after he left, or was that the end?

Charles Blackman No, not much. He was a bigamist, he was- he was married three times actually. He was married three times, actually.

Sandra McGrath Without getting caught?

Charles Blackman No, someone- someone dobbed him in, and he got caught. He was caught just before the war, just actually when the Western Desert sort of business was going on. And so he got 18 months' gaol, but my mother made a great speech in the dock and said that he was a sort of terrific engineer and he'd like to join the army. He probably didn't want to join the army at all. Anyhow, the judge said, "Would you like to volunteer for the RAAF? I'll suspend the sentence." Which he did. She made this great speech about building sand bridges- I where she got all this information, I've got no idea- sand bridges in the Western Desert for the troops or whatever. And so he went off and did that.

Sandra McGrath Still going blind. Are your sisters older than you?

Charles Blackman I have two sisters older, one younger.

Sandra McGrath Where did it all start? In Newcastle?

Charles Blackman No, it's Harbord, Sydney. My grandmother came to Australia on a boat. Harbord's Freshwater. Freshwater, it's Warringah. You go South Steyne, Queenscliff, Harbord, Curl Curl, Dee Why, going up there.

Sandra McGrath Oh, on the South Coast then.

Charles Blackman No, just over on the other side of the bend. You know when you said it was Coalcliff? No, it's not Coalcliff. It's very bushy. And- and, um, grandmother met her husband on the boat coming out, and, um, they got married on board. And they had nine daughters and six sons—not immediately, but later when they went to live in their little house. They lived in this little tiny house.

Sandra McGrath 15 children.

Charles Blackman No, that was my mother. My father was a state ward. He was adopted, and then he sort of went to live with this family. And then, when he grew up, he changed his name to Blackman. Well, they didn't know what his name was, they just gave him a name.

Sandra McGrath So his name was Blackman Ward?

Charles Blackman No, they didn't name him Blackman.

Sandra McGrath His state name?

Charles Blackman His state name, I wouldn't know what it was. He changed his name by choice when he was 21.

Sandra McGrath Why did he change his name?

Charles Blackman I've never seen him since. I haven't had the opportunity to, because, you see, I had a stepfather who was a very nice man, and he brought us up really after I was the age of 11. And so he was always very insistent with me to go and see my father, but I always said, "Well, you're my father, aren't you?" My so-called father isn't. It's actually because of the malice of my mother. He lives in Toowoomba. He's got a place there called Charles Blackman Motors.

Sandra McGrath I'd like you to just ring him up one day and ask him why he chose the name Blackman.

Charles Blackman Yes, I will.

Sandra McGrath Maybe.

Charles Blackman Give him a blast. Well, at the moment, she's married to a Catholic, and she doesn't know he's ever been married before, so I can't ring him up. Marrying Sam!

Sandra McGrath I mean, this is his third wife, isn't it?

Charles Blackman That's right, yeah.

Sandra McGrath Well, you could sort of have a secret conversation.

Charles Blackman Why am I telling you all this stuff anyhow?

Sandra McGrath Well, I'm interested in why he chose the name Blackman.

Charles Blackman I don't think so. He was probably going past some shop, some butcher shop with Jackie Blackman on the outside when he was going up to the deed poll office and said, "That's it, that'll do."

Sandra McGrath No, I actually think when people change their name they think very seriously and long about what that name is going to be.

Charles Blackman Well, I used to have a- a young friend years ago who was a cad, and he ha- his name was Cecil Knopke, and he changed his name by deed poll to Edmund Sigmund, who was equally a rat.

Sandra McGrath Edmund Sigmund.

Charles Blackman Edmund Sigmund.

Sandra McGrath What was Hal's name before he changed it?

Charles Blackman Hal who?

Sandra McGrath Hal... Missingham?

Charles Blackman No.

Sandra McGrath Hal... Hal who, though?

Charles Blackman Hal Hattam.

Sandra McGrath Was he somebody else before, Hal Hattam?

Charles Blackman I think so, yes. He's probably somebody else before that, too.

Sandra McGrath Halifax Hayes.

Charles Blackman That's right, he changed it to Halifax Hayes. This is where he lived.

Sandra McGrath Oh, really? Well, what are you doing wandering around? You're just looking around.

Charles Blackman Well, that's very simple, Sandra.

Sandra McGrath How did the Alice in Wonderland series start?

Charles Blackman Oh, that's very simple, Sandra. Barbara joined the Talking Book Library in Melbourne for the blind. And you get a thing which is like a suitcase which plays talking books. They're records, which are just people recording. And most of these records then—they've got a big new library now, it's sort of quite fantastic— all the records were made in England. And all the readers were—the man who read out this book called Alice in Wonderland, which I'd never read— and it's terrific to have something read out to you. And his name was Alvar Lidell. He's a very famous BBC news announcer. Of course, I could never listen to him when I was in England without him turning into a pack of cards, or some equally sort of mad sort of thing. But anyhow, we got this record which was played, as you see, at 14. It was very slow. Half of 33 and a third, I think, whatever it is. And so I heard all this on the record, and of course I thought it was terrific. And it had some kind of terrific immediacy to me as a person, because at the time I was working for Georges Mora in his kitchen. And I used to go to work in his kitchen every night at 5:00 and, um, do all the cooking and washing up and all that sort of stuff, but I was the only person in the kitchen. And you had to move in such a- it was like- like literally like kitchen ballet, actually. You had to work at such speed to cover all these jobs, to do all these works. So I'd have the fridge doors open— sorry, love—and be sort of throwing out sort of plates like that, you see. So I always sort of think that, uh, that, um, I was painting these Alice in Wonderland pictures and the Rabbit, and the Rabbit was a sort of helped me. He used to come into the kitchen and help me. And- and indeed the plates used to all seem to go in the sink by themselves, and all the food used to get cooked, and I was sort of, um, being helped by this person. Otherwise you could never have done it. I still can't understand how I did it. I think it's an interesting little theory, anyway.

Sandra McGrath The Rabbit in the kitchen. When- when did- has Barbara always been sightless, or partially?

Charles Blackman When I first met Barbs, actually, she was, um- she went to the university, did a- did, uh, honours in psychology, which she's never practised, but she's always been interested in education and that type of thing. But when I met her, when she was, uh, what, uh, 21, 20, she was losing her eyesight then. More or less, she stopped reading.

Sandra McGrath What was the cause?

Charles Blackman Optic atrophy.

Sandra McGrath Is that rare?

Charles Blackman Well, it's sort of- now it's curable now, actually. A friend of ours who is a great, uh, gynaecologist in Melbourne, can't remember his name now, uh, developed this technique of injecting oxygen in behind the eyeball for- for young It's sort of It's basically oxygenisation, I think, to the capillaries.

Sandra McGrath Something generally to- to

Charles Blackman Generally, the oxygen into something in the bloodstream, and- and- and the fine nerves of the eye- eyes kind of wither and die because there's no oxygen being fed to them. Some funny, very delicate little thing.

Sandra McGrath Things I've sometimes read have suggested that her sightlessness, or partial sightlessness, has had a deep impact on your work.

Charles Blackman Well, it's inevitable, isn't it? I mean, if you're close to someone like Barbara—Barbara's a great lady—I mean, you're bound to be sort of influenced by all that sort of stuff. I've always read to Barbs and lived with her as another person in a kind of way, and I don't really think of her as being blind at all, you know. Except that she's- doesn't have sight, so therefore she has to live the life of a sightless person.

Sandra McGrath Did you ever con- have you ever consciously sort of put it into pictures, or not? Or do you think it just kind of came out?

Charles Blackman No, it was Max Harris who first suggested that I was painting Barbara's childhood, which I thought was a sort of scungy idea, actually, but typical of Max. But, um, I would- you could say that you could relate these sort of things, but I don't really think so. I think that my paintings are really formal expressions of- I think that everybody who feels things, Sandra, like whether it's Brett or- or Arthur, or Bert Tucker, or any painter actually, you try to find a formal conclusion to your emotive, um, passion.

Sandra McGrath To your emotional life.

Charles Blackman To your emotional life, you try to. And it's true of Cézanne, it's true of everybody, really. They find, or attempt to find—it's true of Fairweather, too— uh, a formal equation.

Sandra McGrath A visual equivalent of an emotional state.

Charles Blackman Right. Yeah, if you like to put it like that, that's better, probably. Yes, it's better.

Sandra McGrath Well, that's partially right. I mean, some people like Frank Hinder are very conscious of doing things in a sort of classically dehuman, de- unemotional way, to try to drain emotion from it.

Charles Blackman It's still fitting the form, or whatever it is.

Sandra McGrath Not every artist actually does work quite that way. There is the more romantic versus the classic theories.

Charles Blackman No, no, no, that's quite right. Yeah, that's fair enough, yeah. But still, I mean, I think the schoolgirl's hat and the shadow under the hat and these sort of things, yes, they were feelings. That's true, I suppose, about non-sightedness, if you like, but- Well, people are rather inclined to think that they are, uh, but, um, you could say that those sort of girls with flowers or whatever it is, they're sort of, they're heightened sensibilities about that area of life and thought. That's true. I wouldn't deny it, but, uh, they are formal, essentially, things, trying to find formal answers, I think, perhaps in a romantic sense. You see, he painted out all that cross-hatch about the- the crash helmet I told you about.

Sandra McGrath Did he, really? What is this phenomenon here, the, uh, the- the couple? Is that, uh, Colette and her-

Charles Blackman That's Colette and Willy, yeah.

Sandra McGrath The- the first husband, the- the Svengali.

Charles Blackman That's right, Svengali, if you like, yes.

Sandra McGrath What happened to him, Svengali?

Charles Blackman He died, didn't he?

Sandra McGrath A lot of people do.

Charles Blackman Hello? Yes. I'm talking. I'll ring you back, Olga. All right? Thanks, Olga. Well, I don't know really whether you can do pictures like that, do pictures of people, and sort of expect people to sort of get things out of them, but, uh, I don't think that's really why you do pictures anyhow. You do pictures because you want to, don't you?

Sandra McGrath I think a theme is often a nice way to- to thematic. Sort of like a thematic approach.

Charles Blackman Well, uh, Australian painters are rather inclined to kind of work on themes or something, isn't it? I suppose, aren't they? It's terribly hard to generalise about things. be the whole time, especially if you look at pictures a lot. But sometimes it's very hard to see changes, but I mean it is changing a lot the whole time, mostly paintings, and and um it's terribly hard to sort of say, I would say it's very hard to say much about it. I think that if you're going to be a painter, you're going to paint forever if you live forever. I think you've just got to go on painting. I think that, you

Sandra McGrath know, when you finally croak it works itself out, or something like that. Why do you keep saying it's it's sort of it's difficult being a painter in Australia, why more here than anywhere else?

Charles Blackman Well, I don't think it's any more difficult than anywhere else, really. It's probably in lots of ways very good, but some people feel that living in Australia—and I used to have this sort of conversation with Arthur— there's a there's a sense of being sort of kind of, you're not part of any other place, you're sort of it's an isolated sort of place, and and um uh I loved living in England, I thought it was terrific, but really I was permanently an expatriate,

Sandra McGrath which I didn't like. How long did you live in England?

Charles Blackman Five years plus, from 1960 to 1966.

Sandra McGrath Were your paintings fixed at that period? Slanted?

Charles Blackman Uh they got to be more The paintings got to be a lot more formal actually, more like sort of um bit more like English painting. They were much more hard-edge pictures, much more. If I'd stayed there I probably would have uh um but look, I did as much painting as I could in England. I didn't want to paint there anymore. I really enjoyed it and I got a lot out of it, and I thought it was terrific. But the life there is better than it is here in some ways. I mean, you go you it's it's much easier to be entertained. You go to the theatre a lot, or you can go and look at other paintings a lot, or other painters' work, which is very exciting and terrific really. But here, er you you, you know, it's operate a fucking doorknocker to see another picture. You've got to go around and bash someone's door down to get in, have a terrible argument with them and get drunk on them, and you might see a painting if you're lucky. [laughter]

Sandra McGrath When you begin a painting, do you have do you have to have a subject in mind before you start? Or has it arrived and you Do you think of the subject matter first? How do you start a picture?

Charles Blackman Well, I don't really think that you ever think your subject matter up. You're not sitting down here one day twiddling your thumbs saying, "That's a good idea!" You get up and start painting it. You can't do that. But um I sit around ruminating a lot, naturally enough. But um I think once again it's very much a felt sort of thing. Thanks very much.

Sandra McGrath You didn't really answer the thing, you know? Did When you I know you don't sit around and just go over the canvas and jump up and do it, but I mean, you think of a You're in You're thinking of a theme before you sort of begin it, in a sense? I think you could say I was feeling about it. A feeling of theme. Or you Yeah. before you start to work? But how Do you lay it out first as a drawing before you

Charles Blackman Technically, how do you No, I think that paintings and drawings are very separate objects. I don't think You can't really actually draw, I mean I couldn't do paintings of of of these pictures. The only way I could express them is in drawing, because I think essentially the idea is essentially a very linear one inside uh inside my mind. I think it's a sort of thing which uh uh it's the drawing, the drawing of it, the drawing out of the thought, the unravelling of the knitting, it's very, I think, very lineal. Whereas painting, I think, is much more sort of um uh painting is a much more veiled sort of thing, and I think that it it it is something uh where, you know, people sometimes say that canvases are a sort of battleground. To me, they're not a battleground. They're They're areas where you you persuade thought to emerge with colour and form. You know, it's a matter of persuasion, it's persuading the image onto the surface, whatever that image might emerge as. I mean, you know, when I'm painting I change it the whole time, all the time. And then sometimes it starts to go towards an area which suits one. And then you stay with that and um try to grasp its uh um uh or try to realise the the emerging sort of... So it's a matter really actually trusting yourself that what you are persuading out is what wants to come out. And in drawing, how would you say the difference Well, I've done I'd treat drawing, I think, much more differently. I think that once you actually start running lines upon a page, uh you come to it very quickly. It solves itself. It solves itself very quickly.

Sandra McGrath Or it fouls up very quickly.

Charles Blackman Well, or fouls up very quickly, you see. But I mean I was I used to have a great mate called Joy Hester, and Joy Hester and I used to talk about, and I think Joy Joy Hester was probably as um uh you know, the most influential person in my life, because Joy uh was so articulate about drawing. She was terrific. And uh Joy always said, "The great thing about drawing is there are no barriers between you and it," whatever "it" is. It's not true for everybody, because everybody doesn't like drawing.

Sandra McGrath Is this the largest scale drawing you've done?

Charles Blackman Well, consistently, yeah. Yeah, that is To do 14 drawings that size is a bit sort of cracked, in some sort of ways, but uh yeah, I mean I've done drawings bigger than that, but uh

Sandra McGrath Tell me the technique of these as far as getting the the grey background. Is that just charcoal rubbed in?

Charles Blackman It's what you call um uh yeah, that's a straight charcoal drawing, but it's compressed charcoal.

Sandra McGrath What is compressed charcoal?

Charles Blackman Well, it's uh What is compressed charcoal, Rob?

Bob It's not vine charcoal. It's uh

Sandra McGrath Not the bamboo charcoal?

Charles Blackman No, no, no, it's not not not grapevine charcoal.

Sandra McGrath It's interesting, this medium of charcoal, because it seems it seems to come out so different every time someone uses it. I mean, there must be a thousand different lines. And is it Are all these done with this compressed charcoal or some with the vine charcoal?

Charles Blackman It's a mixture.

Sandra McGrath A mixture.

Charles Blackman See this one here is straight compressed charcoal, it's got no grapevine charcoal in it at all. You see, they've they've been drawn over the top of the canvas. Stretch the paper over the canvas so that it's soft.

Sandra McGrath Oh, I see, that's that's what

Charles Blackman That's what it is, and of course I haven't stuck them down, they're um they're stretched to get over canvas again. Charles Hewitt's going to commit suicide next week, I think.

Sandra McGrath You mean you give him the paper and tell him to stretch it over the canvas?

Charles Blackman Yep. Well, I des- I designed the idea, and he sort of did and does it.

Sandra McGrath That's an interesting idea, isn't it?

Charles Blackman Well, I think paper has a life and a lightness of its own, and uh I hate to see it, you know, when you stick paper down it sort of uh presents a surface to the light which I think sort of dies in some kind of way. I mean paper is mark's medium, but I think it's a very light medium, and I think if you stick it down, you kind of kill it a bit.

Sandra McGrath Do you do these on the floor or on the wall?

Charles Blackman Uh well, laying flat on the great big table, or standing up on the easel.

Sandra McGrath What, on this little shed?

Charles Blackman Well, you might I might start it all off uh uh lay laying it down flat. Well, for instance, Sid always paints flat. He never paints upright.

Sandra McGrath Funny.

Charles Blackman Mmm, he always paints on a table which is actually lower than this, it's got wheels on it, and so he sort of moves it about and sort of paints on it.

Sandra McGrath Is this where you do most of your work in here?

Charles Blackman Yes, this is where I do most of my work in here. But I've got a little studio up in the country which is uh very isolated little place, which is simple place, but a nice place. He sort of says that I'm like Count Yorga up there. [laughter] I sort of fly out at night and sort of seek the pitiful [laughter] people.

Sandra McGrath And you actually did those up there?

Charles Blackman Yep.

Sandra McGrath It's like Count Yorga's small, you know, room, isn't it?

Charles Blackman Oh well, it's good good little place, isn't it, Robert?

Bob Yeah, it's not small.

Charles Blackman Built out of old old bridges.

Sandra McGrath Old bridges?

Charles Blackman Yeah. We bought two old bridges and you stand them upright, the beams are what, what would they be, Bob? They're eight eight inches by four inches, something like that, and you stand them end to end and you put a bit of stuff in between just and you just tie them one to another, and it's very simple. Works.

Sandra McGrath Sounds heroic, John. Oh, dear. Tell me, when did you go actually to art school? Did you study in Sydney Tech?

Charles Blackman Uh well, my art education really was uh drawing uh at live classes, which I did consistently for quite a long time.

Sandra McGrath Here or in Melbourne?

Charles Blackman Uh here, actually. Uh and then I didn't really go to the East Sydney Tech, but I worked on a newspaper for since from the age of 13 and a half till almost 19, which is an education in itself really.

Sandra McGrath Did you leave school at 13?

Charles Blackman 13 and a half.

Sandra McGrath Did you hate school?

Charles Blackman Well, I didn't hate school, but there wasn't anything there in it that you could get. Just a sort of waste of time.

Sandra McGrath Did you know at 13 you were going to be an artist? Or that you wanted to be in that, something to do?

Charles Blackman Well, I couldn't do anything else, Sandra. So there was really no choice, was there? [laughter]

Sandra McGrath You mean at 13 you wouldn't do anything else?

Charles Blackman Well, I mean, I couldn't do anything else. I mean, I could swim, but you can't sort of just swimming! [laughter]

Sandra McGrath So at 13 you were equipped for life with a pen, and then you could swim.

Charles Blackman That's right.

Sandra McGrath I see.

Charles Blackman Diving for pennies, you see, was a great income. Unfortunately, they've pulled Manly Pool down now, and I can't breathe as well as I used to, so [laughter] can't go back to that. I'm sorry I haven't got any coffee for you.

Sandra McGrath I love those olives on that olive jar over there actually. Some photo- Olio Sasso. Some photorealist could be envious of that.

Charles Blackman Yeah. It's a good picture. All you need is a camera obscura. What's the other thing they use?

Sandra McGrath I'd like to actually see a camera obscura. I've only seen one in a picture. I've never actually seen one. Uh there's a picture that's very famous in the Tate and the camera obscura actually painted. It's in the picture.

Charles Blackman The Did The camera obscura itself is actually in the picture?

Sandra McGrath Yeah.

Charles Blackman Has anyone ever actually painted a picture, a photorealist picture of a camera obscura?

Sandra McGrath I don't think so. That's quite a good subject actually. Thousands of other.

Charles Blackman Charles Bannon was telling me when I saw him in Adelaide that uh he goes to teach in a school where they teach painting, and they have these um things where you can sort of blow up uh uh pictures on the wall, and you sort of trace them all on and then you get your airbrushes and all and you build the whole sort of thing up, in fact they can't paint at all.

Sandra McGrath That That's the epidiascope.

Charles Blackman Epidiascope, yeah.

Sandra McGrath Yes. Well, how does it function? I don't know, apparently they're not as easy as they appear. It has a prism. It's just you put a piece of paper down

Bob and then you put it onto a prism, and the light goes through and protects on the wall.

Sandra McGrath Epidiascope. Yes. Yes, but what's your... Camera obscura is

Bob The original camera obscura was written up by Aristotle. It's just a room with a hole in one wall. They still use it in Greece, where you sit in a darkened room and you watch people walk past.

Charles Blackman That's right, yes, I've seen it, yes, yes.

Sandra McGrath Of course it is. But it's not just a hole in the wall, is it? I mean, Well, in fact with that how does the light get into the...

Bob You have a hole in one wall and a darkened room, and the the light from outside, the rays of light are projected through that wall onto a onto a white wall at the back of the room, and you can see the people walking past.

Sandra McGrath Really? That's the origin of the camera.

Charles Blackman Be made- Oh, really? That sounds a bit simple, Rob. [laughter]

Bob All of them are so simple.

Sandra McGrath And then eventually they put a glass over that hole, right? Put a lens. Then they put a round lens.

Bob And they vary the wall from one distance from one wall to the other to get it sharper. Make that hole smaller or larger, make the image

Charles Blackman Then they have they have a dish, like a big mirror.

Sandra McGrath Yes. That's the one I've seen. Yes, that's in the Tate. That's the one that had it.

Bob That's the one they used to have with a prism up in the roof, and it projects it downwards.

Charles Blackman Does it? That actually you just have the prism in the room with light coming through it? Which way is the prism? Upside up or upside down?

Bob It comes into the prism, and then it projects it downwards onto this bowl. And that's how they used to do landscape drawings and that. They used to take these things out in the country and sit inside them, these boxes on wheels, drawn by horses. And these gentlemen used to actually draw the landscape through a camera obscura inside.

Sandra McGrath I wish you a fund of information this morning. I wonder where you pick it You're going to shut up a minute. I wonder So photorealism on wheels! [laughter] That's right. Sounds rather good, doesn't it? What do you think about our new movement back to realism? Do you think that's exciting? Well, it's a Yeah, I suppose it's a funny sort of thing, it's sort of um uh some of it's a bit deadpan. See, I always think that painting is something that you that that that that that gets inside you and you go away and it stays there. Until you forget it, eh? Well, it's sort of always there in a kind of way. I mean, it changes when you You keep looking at that drawing, it it keeps changing the whole sort of time, only because you keep changing. But um when you go away, if that image doesn't stay with you, or if or if it doesn't get inside you, well then there's something funny going on. Tell me, after having done such a large series of works, how long does it take you to do it? Well, about a year altogether, but I mean, it didn't take me very long to do it once I actually sort of kind of got onto its wavelength. Seven or eight weeks? So it would be, oh, about eight, nine weeks. I mean, you can't just do one drawing after the other. It doesn't work out like that. You know, you do one drawing...

Charles Blackman that you do one drawing and then you might start

Sandra McGrath Did you do them actually in the sequence they're in now?

Charles Blackman Hm, oh, I don't know. I mean, it's very hard to say, actually. No, I can't. That was the first one. I remember that.

Sandra McGrath The Dancer?

Charles Blackman Yeah, the lady.

Sandra McGrath After finishing a series like this, do you feel depleted and that you can't, um, that, you know, you have to wait now for the next sort of subject to take you over, so to speak?

Charles Blackman Well, the worst thing about not working really is that you spend too much time either hitting the bottle or yelling and screaming or trying to find something to do when there's nothing to do. Fortunately, you see, you live in this lovely climate, you can get to the beach for a swim, which is really nice. Then I do a lot of reading to Barbara, which is, uh, fairly time-consuming, so I mean, I don't mind. But, um, I used to be a tremendously compulsive sort of worker, and I used to work the whole time, no matter what. But I don't do that so much now. I don't, uh, I don't like doing it so much now. You get too repetitive, and I'm tremendously anti the idea of, um, uh, you know, society's been inclined to sort of say, "You're that, and so, ah, we're going to flog you off." But I don't like that. I've turned against all that idea.

Sandra McGrath Against the idea of society doing what? Now that confused me.

Charles Blackman Well, having exhibitions which are the right size and which are for sale.

Sandra McGrath Yeah. So now you just do your own thing.

Charles Blackman Yes, give it big, too. I mean, the size gets large. But I really actually like working, Sandra, and what I'm going to do next is I'm going to just do, um, some paintings from the nude for a while. I've cleaned up the room downstairs. I've got a nice lady who's prepared to come and model. I promised not to screw her. And, um— Well, so, uh, what I'd like to do is to work on some nudes. It took me

Sandra McGrath Actual minute.

Charles Blackman Ninety.

Sandra McGrath Why don't you get 120s?

Charles Blackman Not in my green purse, so they're lost. I can believe that. Have to fit in three cassettes.

Sandra McGrath Be lucky to have these. That'd be interesting. You know, I was looking at two etchings that Brett did of the nude. One was of the back of his sister, who's called Franny. And one was one from memory, a memory of the nude. And the one that's done from real life is so much more outstanding than the one that's done from memory, it's quite extraordinary. And I said to him, you know, that's really, that's one of the nicest things I've seen for that. It's just this back, the head very plainly kind of getting... It's got all sorts of right crinkles and things on it. And he said, "Well, that's just the difference of drawing from life and drawing from memory." He said you automatically abstract when you draw from memory. So when you're faced with the nude,

Charles Blackman you do get obsessed by, you know, a line that you see. No, that's a marvellous contact thing, actually. I mean, it is marvellous. I don't know what this this is, but, um, yes, Brett actually... Brett and Perceval, who I think very alike in lots of ways, actually. First of all, they're both geniuses. See, I'm talking about Perceval at the age of 30, 32, 35. And even when John started painting when he was 20, you see, or earlier than that, he was 14 when he went into hospital with osteomyelitis, and he's still got a leg which is as big as a pencil. And of course, John's created a pain in his life, actually, reason why he's all half fucking nuts, you know. But he was a marvellous young person, John, and a terrific painter. But he's one of the few painters who, I think, has painted this directly from the world, but it's a totally internal sort of thing. I mean, he connects his internal thing and pins it onto an outside sort of thing, which I think Brett does, too, a lot. You know, you paint a scene, whether it's your pool or whether it's, um, uh... Palm Beach. Well, he does a lot more now, but even those Christie things, they're, they're, they're, they're using visual reference to actual things. He actually draws from the nude or something while he's doing it, and he starts from that point in his pictures.

Sandra McGrath Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because when he did that Christie series, he went to Madame Tussauds every day.

Charles Blackman Yes, I can imagine him doing that, yes. When he used to come over to our place when we used to live in Regent's Park, he had this fucking monkey, he used to drive this bloody monkey mad. He had a monkey? No, it was a sort of... At one stage he got a giraffe from Marlborough, actually. And the bloody giraffe went "Woof!" and locked up the bloody backyard thing. So they finally had to get rid of it. You can imagine a giraffe, all the way from Africa to Brett's backyard! But this was not actually a monkey, it was a sort of that square-faced thing with sort of brilliant balls. What's it called?

Sandra McGrath Baboon.

Charles Blackman Baboon, yeah. The sacred baboon, and of course it had permanent erections, you know. Brett used to go and torture the mind out of this poor bloody... You sit there like this, throw this baboon fruit... It was terribly funny.

Sandra McGrath This is in London? You actually saw that?

Charles Blackman Yes, I used to go round there with him. I ended up by doing a drawing of the elephant. But you can see Brett in action, that sort of thing. You see, you know, he was totally kind of, absolutely and completely immersed in the object. Nothing, you know, nothing. It drives him mad and he drives it mad, until he's done with it. There's no, you know, he's like a sort of fish on a hook. There's no getting off the line until he's done with it.

Sandra McGrath And how would you compare yourself to this relationship with the object, with the figure? Would you say you keep it all, you've kept it more internalised?

Charles Blackman I can't draw the object as... I mean, I can do drawings of the nude only because I've had an enormous amount of practice at it, and I like it, you know, sort of. And it's a very risky, solid sort of thing that you're doing, that's really kind of, you just... And what's nice about it is that when you're painting the nude, is that you're not thinking about the painting at all, you see. The painting, you sort of look back after three hours and say, "Damn bastard." You know, you've done that picture, but you've taken no notice of what you're doing, you're just painting actually what you're seeing, in a kind of way, which is fascinating. But I mean, I could no more sit out there and paint that landscape than I could fly over the top of it. But I mean, I can shut all the windows and paint a picture of it.

Sandra McGrath It's interesting, because it is quite a different working manner, isn't it?

Charles Blackman Very different. Very different. I think that Arthur is an interesting case. You see, Sid can't draw things either from life. I mean, he's totally internal sort of person.

Sandra McGrath I was going to say your paintings are really much more related to the way Nolan works.

Charles Blackman Well, except that he's a landscape painter and I'm not.

Sandra McGrath No, I'm just saying the process, though. It's really an abstraction, really, before you really start.

Charles Blackman Well, it's visual, but it doesn't actually... unless, what I suppose that I was trying to say before, unless you can actually draw the leaf the way you feel it should be, then you can't draw it. You know, the blockage is just impossible to get it out.

Sandra McGrath With Australia being such a landscape country, why have you been able to avoid it so successfully?

Charles Blackman Good question, that. Well, I've done some paintings of the moonlight at night and stuff, but not really landscapes. I mean, I've been out with Arthur and John and Clifton Pugh and Fred Williams and a whole gang of thugs out in the bush, draw and paint, a whole truck of thugs out in the bush. And they all do it marvellously, they're really keen, they get to it, you know, they sort of paint away like mad and they all extract something from it, some kind of essence or some sort of thing about it. But I'd end up by sort of being a clown, you know. I mean, I'd be sort of standing on my head, sort of saying, "Look at this cliff," and falling off cliffs, and making them tea. I couldn't sit down in front of it and do it.

Sandra McGrath Maybe you should try putting a nude in the bush. That's, you know, the most amazing thing, that Arthur sat poor old Yvonne out in the bush.

Charles Blackman Yes, I saw that, yes. Scorching hot days. Sort of painted her tits and a fanny and this terrible sort of man, sort of grey shadows, and they were quite good, I loved them.

Sandra McGrath Yes, and he gets himself out in a boat, and puts her on the bank, and there she's sitting, you know. I don't know, I don't know. I would have never... I think that was almost cruel, to make Yvonne do that.

Charles Blackman I think it's just Arthur being funny. You know, Arthur does some very funny things, actually. He's a funny kind of man. And the most extraordinary story I know about that, Arthur and I went to Vienna for a trip together. And so I said, "Arthur, let's go to... let's go to Vienna and have a look at the..." It starts with A, the name of the drawing museum in Vienna. Albertina. And we were start talking to Barry Humphries, who was there, and Barry said, "Arthur," and Arthur said, "Yes, Barry." He said, "There are 300,000 drawings in the Albertina, how long are you going for?" We said, "Two days," and Barry just looked at him and said, "That's a drawing a minute!" He said, "Shoot!" Anyhow, we went off for our trip, and of course it was only... it was locked, you couldn't get in. And Arthur and I pounded on these great steel doors, you know, sort of thing, opened up! But it was closed for two months for some reason or the other, and we didn't know anybody and couldn't speak German or Viennese or anything. And so we went back to our hotel, you see, and Arthur rather objected to this. And I said, "Look, I tell you what we'll do, Arthur. Don't worry about it. We'll catch a train up the Rhine and we'll go to Amsterdam and have a look at the beautiful Rembrandts." So that sort of cheered him up a bit. And so we went to bed at night and Arthur... I just was looking out of the window and it was a garage downstairs and the petrol fumes were absolutely unbelievable. You know, you couldn't breathe. So Arthur went to sleep and I got up and I crawled across the floor, so I didn't want to disturb him, and locked the window, you see. And I went back and I sort of went to sleep, started snoring. Anyhow, I woke up to this kind of sound, because I'm a fairly light sleeper. There's Arthur on his hands and knees crawling across the floor to get over here to open the window, you see. And this, of course, went on all night, whole sort of thing. But I said to Arthur in the morning, I said, "Arthur, do you know that wonderful story about the man who was in a hotel room, and he was a... he's like you, he couldn't stand not having fresh air in life. So he went to bed... he came home drunk, actually. He went to bed, and he was laying in bed and he suddenly thought he was suffocating. So he got his shoe up off the floor and hurled it at the window, and there's this great crash of glass, and he went, 'Ah,' said, 'That's terrific.' OK, when he woke up in the morning, the mirror was broken!"

Sandra McGrath Did you ever get to Amsterdam?

Charles Blackman Yes, we did, actually. And Yvonne and Arthur and I and Barbara went up to... it was during the Tulip Festival time, so there was nowhere where you could stay. So anyhow, I said to Arthur, I said, "Arthur," I said, "I've dragged you around bloody Europe," I said, "I'm sick of it." I said, "You find us a room for the night. That's your job." So Arthur... there was this vast amount of people in this tiny place, a kind of, you know, a kiosk, sort of hexagonal kiosk called, you know, "Welcome to VVV" or whatever it was, "Welcome to Amsterdam." So poor Arthur, I sat and watched him through the glass. He was there for an hour and a half trying to explain to this woman and sort of... Anyhow, we finally got a room, because a lot of people have rooms which they rent out just to people during this time. So we went... we went and got in a taxi and went to some godforsaken place down by some dyke, got out, climbed up these stairs. We got into this room. We're in this room with this old man who he had his... he's had his hand shot off in the First World War in the German army or something like that, you know. He's a real kind of...

Sandra McGrath It's a very good... it's a very good Boyd image, anyway.

Charles Blackman Literally. So anyhow, his wife kept doing this the whole time, sort of wringing her hands, "My better ladies, first..." And finally he said, "You wish to have the pee?" And I said, "Oh yes, we'll have a pee, rather." So we went and had a pee and we came back and he said, "Now you go to bed." And we said, "All right." So we climbed up this little tiny narrow staircase, with which he locked us in. There we were locked in this bloody room, you see. That's right. Couldn't get out of this room. Anyhow, finally they let us out about 6:00 in the morning. Like, going out to... to... Like, going out the prisoner of Zenda or something like that. Poor Arthur burst out of the... rushed out of the thing, rushed out of the... wouldn't go back in the house.

Sandra McGrath Oh man, Phillip... Oh, who sounds madder, you or him, actually? You know one thing, I don't want to go around Europe with either one of you!

Charles Blackman I don't blame you.

Sandra McGrath Who is your fav... what's, getting back to figures again, who's your... what's your favourite painting of the nude figure?

Charles Blackman My favourite painting of the nude figure's got to be Titian. Or Gauguin. But I mean, it's hard to get past that bloke who does the nudes in the bath, what's his name? You can't paint like that anyhow.

Sandra McGrath Bonnard.

Charles Blackman Bonnard. You see, he's a very funny sort of painter, Bonnard. He painted away all those paintings, all this lovely, developed this lovely kind of soft plastic touch, which is absolutely incredible, the colour, the mauves and... It's so smoky and marvellous. You couldn't really paint like that in Australia, it's too... you know, it's very sort of... It's just not... We don't have the history, you don't have the light, you don't have the way of life. There wasn't a temperament to paint like that.

Sandra McGrath How do you think that the Australian temperament is to, say that, the non-hard European temperament?

Charles Blackman Most good Australian painters, as I know them, are basically, although I mean you could be corrected, the moment you open both doors you can always correct yourself, but I think most of the... most of the painters, Australian painters I've seen, are basically poetic and rather fierce at the same time.

Sandra McGrath That's nice... That's a nice thought.

Charles Blackman So I mean, if you go along and see Rothko's paintings, you know, I was very keen on Rothko's paintings, you can't paint like that because they're huge floating things, you know, those marvellous sort of godlike flotation objects. I mean, it's terribly sort of kind of Russian and Jewish and American, and the sort of attack, you know, I mean... Going back to Arthur again, if you like, sort of the attack is... And Arthur is probably, out of our tradition, the most talented painter. Not to say that Brett isn't, but I mean, you know, because, only because he's been doing it since... like Brett, since he was 14. You know, Arthur was painting for about 20 years before I even picked up a brush. It's a long time. And his whole family has this sort of history of painting. You know, his father was a painter, a draughtsman. He was nuts, but I mean he used to do these drawings. And Aunt Mary was quite mad, used to start staring at people, crack up people. But so there was a definite sort of history of art and life and that sort of thing in the Boyd family. But you get isolated people like, most of the others, it's really the character of the person and not the tradition which makes the picture. You're being slightly cracked. Well, this is it. It's very hard to define, Sandra, actually. It's very hard to define. If you said... If you said, I mean, Bryan Robertson was always very good at talking about Australian painting when he first saw it, and so was Kenneth Clark. And they both said really the thing which interested them the most was the attack, the virtual sort of kind of... It was like sort of, you laying siege... It was like somebody laying siege to a tremendously poetic thought, and, you know, getting... and, you know, getting out of it with a fucking axe, sort of bulldozer and sort of... Well, they both seriously thought that's what it was like. It's probably changed a great deal since the last. You know, it's now 1976. That was 1958, wasn't it? '59? That's it, 1960. All the painters...

Sandra McGrath I don't think a poetic and fierce combination is nice, and I think that those two together, must be that thing about space, or something else for Australian art, isn't it? Some sort of openness about it.

Charles Blackman Oh, that's fair. But, you know, my mind in talking about, you know, what...

Sandra McGrath The sensibility.

Charles Blackman The sort of sensibility, if you like. You know, it's like, not that I'm saying money made us, I'm saying the sensibility makes the painter. What he does with it, whether he's like Syd Ball, or whether he's like Mike Johnson, or whoever, whatever he's actually doing with his sensibility, that's his affair. He does it because that suits him.

Sandra McGrath You can't imagine a Pollock painting here, though, can you? You can't imagine the works of Pollock coming from here, for some reason. They don't...

Charles Blackman I don't think so, no. You don't have that kind of, um... Well, I don't think you have that kind of flux. I don't think you have that kind of muscular muscular sort of psychology, or it's I think Australian art is much more broken up, and more fragile. Painters do get round in gangs, only when they're younger, though. They don't normally. You understand?

Sandra McGrath Well, Clive made that, a couple of silly remarks in the last, in the New Poetry magazine about how one of the troubles of Australian painters was that they never communicated. They never got together and talked, and they never, um, had a slice of each other.

Charles Blackman God, he's new to him, mate. I mean, you know... The last conversation I had with Peter, with Peter Powditch, and, um, who's that painter that's, um, quite young, talks a little bit like Brett, but not really?

Sandra McGrath Billy Brown?

Charles Blackman No. No, I know Billy Brown. Um, he does landscapes which are places, but which are nowhere.

Sandra McGrath Tim Storrier?

Charles Blackman Yeah, Tim Storrier. Last time we all went had a party up at, er, Frank Hodgkinson's place. I, and who's the other nice bloke with big glasses, who paints very nicely? David Aspden. David Aspden, yeah. He's very good painter.

Sandra McGrath Well, you're talking about how so well you communicate, you don't even know their names! [laughs]

Charles Blackman Well, I can see their faces very clearly, you see.

Sandra McGrath That's a help.

Charles Blackman That's a help, yeah. Sure is, yeah.

Sandra McGrath I suppose you can see they're out here.

Charles Blackman I think we had a conversation which lasted about 150 hours. And I've never had a conversation which lasted as long. We were on all fours. Body and soul, Sandra!

Sandra McGrath But, you know, that was once a decade, that was.

Charles Blackman That'd be right.

Sandra McGrath So, Clive's remark isn't...

Charles Blackman Well, I don't get round with painters, Sandra. I never did. I get round with, er, with, with writers.

Sandra McGrath For what reason?

Charles Blackman Well, my wife's a writer. She knows a lot of writers. So that I like writers. I mean, I'd go around and talk with Jeffrey Lehmann. I wouldn't go round and have a talk with, um, Tim Storrier. I don't want to talk to a painter. But I like talking about things. I like talking about, if you like, that sensibilities.

Sandra McGrath You said it. Well, do you think that is a difference then, say, that sort of American school of painters where everyone went in and jammed themselves into lofts and things, and still do, in fact? At least, they did last time I was there. And it's sort of the feeling that the external...

Charles Blackman My upbringing as a painter was that I worked with, with Perceval and Arthur and Len French and Freddy Williams, and we saw each other every other day.

Sandra McGrath That's when you were younger.

Charles Blackman Yeah. Because there was no way you could learn anything from except your fellow painters. And Len and I used to spend all Saturday afternoon grinding up bloody, er, colours and putting aluminium hydrate into things, and seeing how what made the paint work. And, you know, Len would look at my paintings and say, 'See you in 10 years, mate.' Or whatever it was. And I'd say, 'Well, your paintings, mate, just because there's a party going on in the next room, you can't get through the fucking doorway!' Anyhow, but definitely we had this thing of communication between painters. And I'm sure that young painters today do exactly the same thing. I mean, does Billy Brown ever go down and go round and see, um, Mike Kitching?

Sandra McGrath I don't know. I know that Tim spends an awful lot of time with Brett and John, or as much as he can, for probably the same reasons. He's trying to drain their knowledge, or...

Charles Blackman Milk their brains.

Sandra McGrath Take, take what you can quickly. No, I think that's quite right. I think there is definitely, there must be a hunger for the younger painters to be involved with the older painters. Do you think the painter's role is very different, and... Do you think the painter's role in society is very different to everybody else's? There's a specialness to it?

Charles Blackman No, I don't. Well, I suppose it's hard to say that sort of thing, but I don't really think they should be treated any more special or any different to anybody else. And I don't really think they should be treated like the plumber, because plumbers are a race apart. They're all mad.

Sandra McGrath You think they should be given grants?

Charles Blackman No, I don't think they should be given grants. I think they should... Because, first of all, I think painters make furniture, which can or cannot be, so as the case may be. But I don't think that poets make furniture, and I don't think writers make furniture unless they've had a really successful novel, which is fairly rare. I think writers and musicians should be given grants because it's a long and tedious activity, but there's no furniture in it. I think sculptors should perhaps be given grants to do works because it's fiendishly expensive, but I don't think painters should be given grants. I can't see the point of it. I don't think there is anything that can be done that way up where you can't actually, um, make some sense of it in the soon enough time to help you cope with your life. It might take you a decade, but a decade isn't terribly long.

Sandra McGrath Do you think it's possible for a painter to be excellent without being commercially successful in, say, Sydney, just to limit it to this?

Charles Blackman You see, what is commercially successful? I don't know any painters who, they do not sell their paintings someway or the other, or do aspire to it. Who are they?

Sandra McGrath No, I'm not saying they do. I'm just saying, er, do you think it's possible for this, the aesthetic existing here that wouldn't recognise the excellence of the painting for commercial, in other words, couldn't sell it?

Charles Blackman I think there's, you know, there's only two kinds of painting: good painting and bad painting. And I think that if it's, you know, commercially viable, or if it's not commercially viable, doesn't really add up to much in my mind. I I don't think that painting has a, has a a money equation. I think that it's, it's good to sell your work in some ways, and bad in other ways. I think that it's, it's destructive to sell your work, but it's also destructive to be sitting in a room which is packed from floor to ceiling with all the paintings you've ever done. They're both equally destructive, something like that, you know.

Sandra McGrath Did you enjoy doing tapestries?

Charles Blackman Yes, I did, very much, yeah.

Sandra McGrath Would you go back to tapestries again?

Charles Blackman I would if I could get the opportunity to, but it's very expensive, Sandra.

Sandra McGrath I loved that one of yours, um, I think it's at... Al- Albury? No, Newcastle, I think. The one with the, the cut box hedges with the very large...

Charles Blackman Yeah, I like that. I think it's good.

Sandra McGrath Something, and really, so strong.

Charles Blackman Well, I loved doing that because, you see, you you can you're allowed to think your thoughts out. And funny I should tell you that thing, because I was actually reading that, which I got down when I went down to Angers. And I tried to work out what was the right technique, because basically, you see, they they blow- they blow up your thought photographically, or they put it in a light box and blow it up, trace it on the graph paper. Either way, mechanically, they have to blow it up the exact size. You can never, they don't want you to do that, you see, because then, you know, then they're going to reduce it to blow it up again. So that, you know, graphically, that is on graph paper, it can be, um, woven. You know, they're all done in these long strips of graph paper, all kind of coloured in and numbered and stuff. So, I went down to Angers to see these tapestries called The Apocalypse, and, um, what interested me about them was that they were done from miniatures. All these little kind of things, sort of serpent heads and... were actually illuminated manuscripts which somebody translated into the medium

Sandra McGrath Oh.

Charles Blackman of tapestries, you see. That really interested me, because I thought, well, you can, you can then, um, er, do your picture and take a photograph of it, and give them the photograph. And if the photograph is good enough, that's the best maquette you can use.

Sandra McGrath Is that how you did those? Did you send them photographs of the work?

Charles Blackman I did the original little pictures. If you like, one day I'll show you one of the original little pictures, and and I think I've still got the, um...

Sandra McGrath The hedges? The English hedges?

Charles Blackman Yeah, I've I've got the, the the English hedges, er, er, drawing. And it's exactly the same as the thing, except that it's, it's quite big. But, er, I took it along to a, um, a French photographer who was put onto me by, um... What an actual point? It's the bloke who works in Paris for Time, Robert.

Sandra McGrath Do you know his name?

Charles Blackman Yeah, um... Very nice man, he was a German, he was a...

Sandra McGrath A Melbourne bloke, okay.

Charles Blackman He was a Jew, he was thrown out of the Nazis. He was, he was very rich when he was young, and he had a huge pram, you see. All he can remember is this gigantic pram, and the foolish woman who used to wheel him round in it all the time. [laughs] Er, not Athel D'Ombrain, but he's, but he worked in in Melbourne the same time as Athel did. Well, when the Nazis came over, they turfed him and his lot out, and he came to Australia. He's very cultured, very nice man, lived in Paris. But he put me onto a studio, where, because I ex- I tried to explain my problem to him, so that they actually, uh, do this with this great big copying camera, and you put filters on it and you can get exactly the kind of bias you want, whether it's just a little bit more red, a little bit more... It's very controlled sort of activity. And they did terrific work, actually, whole-plate photographs for these things. So, I just took these whole-plate photographs down to these people. They were quite happy. They just put them in their light box, traced it all out. And the next thing, once you actually get the cartoon, you see, that's when, er, er, you have to, er, do most of your thinking. It's, you know, it's how many strands you put together to make a different kind of chiné, er, what dyes you need to have done over and above what they already have. And really, his actual palette is in the wool. And, I mean, it it's a woollen object, it's not a painting. And the whole thing about the weaving is that you've got to understand er, yourself as a painter or a designer, whatever it is that you are, that, um...

Sandra McGrath The limitations of the medium.

Charles Blackman The limitations of the medium. So, I I, once again, I think it's a very literal thing, er, um, but some people don't think so, er, but, um, I think that it's, um, very much a colour sort of thing, and and what I loved about it was the sort of soft smokiness of it.

Sandra McGrath Can happen to be very beautiful.

Charles Blackman I'd love to do some more, but the the Portuguese place now is really virtually kind of out of action,

Sandra McGrath Why is that?

Charles Blackman because the- well, because of the political situation, because the man who actually ran it, and he's very like the man who does the Froissart, Monsieur Pinton, who's Pinton Frères, who does all the the best tapestries. He's also like, er, Guy Fino who used to be in Portugal. Um, they're both rather baronial sort of characters.

Sandra McGrath The limitations of the medium.

Charles Blackman The limitations of the medium. Once again, I think it's a very literal thing, but some people don't think so, but I think that it's very much a colour sort of thing, and what I loved about it was the sort of soft smokiness of it. I'd love to do some more, but the Portuguese place now is really virtually kind of out of action, because of the political situation, because the man who actually ran it and he's very like the man who does the Froissart, Monsieur Pinton who's Pinton Frères who does all the the best tapestries. He's also like Guy Fino who used to be in Portugal. They're both rather baronial sort of characters. They both have their own sort of firms which earn them enough money so that they can actually indulge themselves in making really beautiful works of art. They don't earn their actual money out of that. And and and both of them also, I think, had access to dyeworks. I know that Guy Fino was also the ICI agent in Portugal, and he had his own dyeworks, so he had the whole thing sort of kind of sewn up. But unless you have great dyeworks, er, as well as good weavers... And, you know, his weavers, you know, they were like his family. He had this huge, whole monastery, and they were kind of, you know, 160 people working for him, and they came to work for him when he was, when they were 14. He trained them. And his father was a weaver and and and throughout the the villages and so forth, er, around this place which is very close to the Spanish border, they just used to weave cloth mostly, but then his father started doing tapestries because he liked them, and he had all these weavers, you know, on Saturday afternoon, put four of them on a loom, and he'd get something translated and gone like that. So Guy was brought up and and really learned the whole trade. But then he inherited his father's business and his money and, you know, sort of very rich man. But, er, he wanted to do make Portugal into a great place of tapestries, and he did. He just got the government sort of commissioning him to do huge tapestries for public buildings and all that type of thing. But of course he was the first to go when they all took over.

Sandra McGrath Yeah, how nice it would be, Rousseau's jungle done in tapestries.

Charles Blackman Oh, it would be fantastic, yeah. Marvellous.

Sandra McGrath I think that...

Charles Blackman Oh, it's beautiful, it's absolutely...

Sandra McGrath Crazy... favourite, though. Sometimes, actually, you remind me a little bit with the tapestries.

Charles Blackman Well, I mean, the great thing about Rousseau's work was that, you know, he was... Everybody always says he was a kind of innocent sort of character, but the marvellous thing about his work is that it's instantly real. It's the most marvellous, magical sort of thing. It's a totally real world. You, you know, you can hear a pin drop in it, and sheer perfection in creating an imaginary planet of existence, which is absolutely perfect.

Sandra McGrath I remember at some museum, I think it was in Washington, they had a whole room full of those. It was gigantic. I never, having looked at all these reproductions all of my life, I've had never had spaced-out scale and the enormity of those jungle ones, you know, the lion peering in...

Charles Blackman They're huge, and he'd sit there and do them to scrape That's totally crazy sort of person.

Sandra McGrath How terrible it would be doing the- these incredible jungle scenes, never having seen the jungle.

Charles Blackman No, he used to go down to the, to the, the Jardin des Plantes.

Sandra McGrath The Jardin des Plantes, which is, which is air-conditioned. You go in there and you sit in there.

Charles Blackman It's quite warm in winter, actually. Then sit there and look at the... ...what you'd expect. When you go into the place, I mean, you you it's so completely quiet, so completely silent. And it's a sort of superb jungle, but there's nothing in it. There's no birds or butterflies or... It's totally silent.

Wendy Whiteley Insects?

Robert Juniper A painter's silence.

Charles Blackman A painter's silence, Robert, yeah.

Robert Juniper Oh, how convenient.

Charles Blackman That's the bloke. He's a good bloke, Robert.

Wendy Whiteley Frank actually told me that there's a lovely sort of, you know, a cycad down at the Botanical Gardens. Have you ever been down there? You know, you sort of been past the Art Gallery and across the bridge?

Charles Blackman Oh yes, yes, I have.

Wendy Whiteley I thought I might go for a walk there some day, 'cause there's a strange plant that's growing in my garden that's actually, well, it's 12-foot long, maybe 18.

Charles Blackman Well, the man over the road says that the weeds are only plants growing in the wrong place. This is not... this must be.

Wendy Whiteley Well, I'm very reluctant to pull out anything in the form of a weed, because I've found as soon as you pull out what you think is a weed here, you go to another country and find them cultivated under precious conditions in some greenhouse.

Charles Blackman Yes.

Robert Juniper Where the tourists have destroyed all the flowers...

Charles Blackman That's right, destroyed all the flowers in their gardens. He was always saying things like that, wasn't he?

Wendy Whiteley Yeah. This plant's most extraordinary. It's got a flower on it this long. That's sort of like a red pea pod, but uh sturdy. Not that sturdy because when the thing, the whole leaf gets so heavy it just falls all over the place, but...

Charles Blackman Is it a bush or a plant? Or or is it a succulent or is it a tree?

Wendy Whiteley It looks like a tall, tall, like six-pronged weed with sort of uh almost uh oleander-shaped leaves, and it's enormous, long, red thorns coming out.

Charles Blackman Mm. What time of the day did you...

Robert Juniper Not from smoking it.

Charles Blackman There's what? You tried smoking it?

Robert Juniper Not from smoking it.

Wendy Whiteley Oh God, that's like going through a walk with Brett in the woods down at Bundanon, Charles, you know.

Charles Blackman Mm. Beautiful place.

Wendy Whiteley We went through I think you've done this. Where he took me and our children, Lulu and Arkie and everyone, and we went through this long walk one day, right in the middle of...

Charles Blackman Who's this?

Wendy Whiteley Brett.

Charles Blackman Yes.

Wendy Whiteley Me, absolutely terrified of snakes, because I've got this phobia about the bush here anyway. And he's striding through, you know, bracken ferns up to here and he ate everything he could find! So, I mean, you know the other day I saw a purpley, hideous-looking gulk coming out from this tree trunk and he'd pick it off and munch it. And we'd pass a hideous growth of mushroom and he would eat that. And then there'd be...

Charles Blackman Oh, that's very interesting, actually, isn't it? It is. Says a lot for his sort of kind of exorcisms of his mind.

Wendy Whiteley And then we'd come We'd go across a log that was crawling with white termites, and sprouting out of it would be sort of an orange-looking, absolutely poisonous-looking toadstool. He'd pick that up and eat it. He ate his way through the bush. I never thought we were going to get back out. I was sure that after...

Charles Blackman Well, he was just going to drop dead at your feet, I would think.

Wendy Whiteley at my feet he was going to do. Clea ate this one of those burrawangs.

Robert Juniper Well, anyone else, he would have.

Wendy Whiteley I kept saying to him, 'You mustn't eat those burrawangs.' You know those red nuts at the bottom of those spiky burrawangs?

Charles Blackman Yep.

Wendy Whiteley They are absolutely They will kill a cow like that! And I kept saying to him, 'Brett, I can take everything else, but that— please don't eat the burrawang.'

Charles Blackman Oh, all the objects were probably poisoned by smack. They probably all died instead.

Wendy Whiteley Instead, the burrawangs died.

Charles Blackman Yes.

Wendy Whiteley All right. I think we've sort of done...