Vera Blackburn b. 27 May 1911

Also known as Vera Bickerton Blackburn
  • Artist (Printmaker)
Printmaker Vera Blackburn was the daughter of artistically minded parents who encouraged her practice through lessons with Thea Proctor. World War Two, marriage and family life arrested her career until the 1980s, when she again took up printmaking.
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printmaker, was born in Sydney on 27 May 1911, eldest child of (Sir) Charles Bickerton Blackburn, a medical doctor and later Chancellor of the University of Sydney, and Vera, née Le Patouret, whom her daughter remembered as embroidering beautiful tapestries. Both parents were interested in art; there were paintings by Thea Proctor , Elioth Gruner and J.J. Hilder in the family home at Potts Point. Vera soon decided that she wished to be an artist, although not necessarily a printmaker, finding the etchings her parents owned by Norman and Lionel Lindsay 'boring’. After visiting Europe with her parents in 1927 Vera returned to study Arts at the University of Sydney, under pressure from her father. She graduated BA with Honours in Classics in 1932. She also took private lessons in watercolour and linocutting with Thea Proctor throughout her university years, who recommended that she study full-time at the newly-established Adelaide Perry Art School. Vera was there from 1933 until leaving for England with her father in 1937, her mother having died the previous year. In 1936 she showed a linocut in the Contemporary Exhibition at Sydney’s Blaxland Galleries.

In London, Vera enrolled at the Westminster School of Art for two years, studying under Eric Schilsky for sculpture and with John Howard, Mark Gertler, Blair Hughes-Stanton and Bernard Mininsky. She disagreed with Frank Medworth 's ideas about linocuts and decided to postpone further work in this medium until returning home. Her friends among the Australian students in London included Jean Bellette , Ruth Pascoe, Eric Wilson, John Passmore and William Dobell .

Vera never returned permanently to Australia for in 1939 she married P.M. Game (son of a Govenor of New South Wales). Married life, a family and World War II took up all her time; apart from an occasional sketch, and she ceased working as an artist until the late 1980s, when she produced a number of linocuts. She continued to live in England until her death in Kent on 14 August 1991 and was 'rediscovered’ as an artist only in 1979 when Roger Butler curated an exhibition of her linocuts.

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Kerr, Joan
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