Poet and writer Barbara Blackman AO (1928–2024) grew up in Brisbane was only fifteen when the ABC Weekly published one of her poems. Diagnosed with optic atrophy, she was declared blind by the age of 22. 'It seemed to me I was given a life sentence for a crime I had not committed,' she wrote in her 1997 autobiography Glass after Glass. She met artist Charles Blackman after moving to Sydney to study, and by 1952 they'd married and relocated to Melbourne. There they became associated with the avant-garde group centred around the Melbourne Contemporary Art Society, and Barbara modelled for artist friends including John Brack and Clifton Pugh. She came to consider her blindness a gift for the richer access it provided to words, poetry, intuition and the imagination, and it had a profound influence on her husband's art, prompting works such as his Schoolgirls and Alice series, in which he created dreamlike imagery based on personal, literary and musical themes. Barbara Blackman also worked as a magazine columnist and a radio-producer for Radio for the Print Handicapped, and helped form the National Federation of Blind Citizens. A documentary about her life, Seeing from Within, was released in 2017.
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On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.
Meredith McKinney, subject of Charles Blackman's 'The Family', recounts memories from her childhood and the creation of the portrait.
