JOHN PERCEVAL

The artist; a gift to Barbara and Charles Blackman
The collection of Barbara Blackman, New South Wales

John Perceval personalised many of his subject paintings of the forties with portraits of family and friends. Arthur Boyd is in The Revellers, 1947-48, Betty Burstall of La Mama theatrical fame and Perceval himself appear in Christ Dining at Young and Jackson's in 1948, while the whole Perceval family are present in Flight into Egypt, 1947-48. There are also works devoted entirely to portraiture such as the individual paintings of Doris and Merric Boyd of 1948, and an endearing joint portrait of baby Tessa and Winkie of the same year. Equally engaging drawings of his children followed – Children Eating, 1949 with a cuddly Tessa, and Matthew Perceval, 1950, both in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. The children grow up in these works – Winky and Tessa in Blackman's Chair was painted  in Blackman's studio in 1952, and Matthew, Tessa and Winkie in a Field of Flowers, 1954-5 shows them taller.

There are  several seated portraits of Tessa, including this painting. One could not help being captivated by the beauty of the fair-haired and blue-eyed Perceval children. In their portraits, Perceval adopted a slightly naïve style to suggest their childhood world of wonder. Here in Tessa in a chair the child's-eye-view of the world is expressed through the directness of her wistful gaze; and the sense of her smallness through her upward look towards the viewer. It was probably completed in Blackman's studio: and became a gift from Perceval to Charles and Barbara Blackman for the use of their coach-house studio in Hawthorn.