Charles Blackman 'Butterfly Mask' expressionism

Charles Blackman 'Butterfly Mask' expressionismButterflies are recurrent motifs in Charles Blackmans work. They flutter through his gardens, streets and Wonderland, winking at the idea of transformation. Indeed, butterflies evolving from lowly caterpillars into flight are a utopian ideal made real. It is true that our identity is in constant movement, and our hope that it will follow the butterfly. In this exceptionally rare work, Charles Blackman uses the butterfly to express the general by the

cropped to her eye’s imperceptible expression

she was honoured with a major retrospective and publication and has been described by the National Portrait Gallery as “Australia’s greatest living abstract painter”

is also made fluid and elusive

titled and editioned in pencil in margin below image: P

Whether wings spread or perched upon a branch

as the artist describes

it is imaginative

Image Size: 84 x 102 cm

fade resistant inks

Bergner and his fellow social realists forged a bracingly political vision

accession number: 20172G41

Image Size: 37 x 29 cm