Basil Blackshaw, H.R.H.A b.1932

‘There’s not a landscape I’ve painted that I haven’t had a connection with...’ (Blackshaw in conversation with Brian McAvera, 'Basil Blackshaw: A New Vision', Irish Arts Review, Winter 2002, Vol.19, no.3, p.67).

The spontaneity of handling in the present work immediately conveys the artist’s excitement for one his favourite subjects, the view over Lough Neagh from his studio. Having grown up in a rural setting, on a farm in Boardmills, near Ballynahinch, where his father kept stables, the surrounding landscape is important to his working process and ‘so long as I can have a glimpse of Slieve Croob and Lough Neagh, I feel at home. I’m a home person…’ (Blackshaw, ibid, p.64).