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Helen Blair (1907 - 1997)

Surreal Landscape, Circa 1960

Catalogue essay by Blanche Llewellyn

Throughout her life, Blair made distinctive modernist works, using a variety of techniques including painting with a palette knife and experiments with collage. Many of her paintings relate to classical or biblical subjects and her landscapes frequently recall the backdrops of the figure paintings of Old Masters.

Later in her life, primarily during the 1960s, she transitioned from figurative to non-figurative art, embracing a surrealist aesthetic especially through the use of collages in which she explored the power of chance juxtapositions. Her works were frequently shown in exhibitions in Cambridge where she spent the later years of her life. Her early works are signed Helen Blair – and her later works are signed Nell Huton.

This composition, dating to around the 1960s revolution in colour printing, which transformed newspapers with the advent of the colour supplement, offered artists like Blair a vast reservoir of new visual material to plunder. In addition to the cut outs from magazines, Blair uses a real daisy and real grass, and various different textures of paper to create a seamless composition. The subtle juxtaposes of unexpected elements (a bricked catacomb, a figure, a real flower), a beloved technique of the Surrealists, creates a sense of disquiet. The landscape, divided into horizontal trench like strips that, along with the vertical posts of grass, bring to mind the battlefields of WW1, scared by human conflict, and yet, the real flower, resonating from its protective corona, offers a sense of hope and light. The predominantly earthy tones used by Blair create an overall a soft harmony.

Signed. Mixed media collage
Blair, Helen

Helen Blair (1907 - 1997)

Helen Sarah Blair was born in New Zealand. By 1922 she had already achieved some commercial success,providing the illustrations for The Why Fairy Book by L.T. Watkins.After returning to New Zealand from her studies in Paris, she metfellow artist John Hutton (1906 - 1978). Together, they embarkedon a successful and prolific collaborative relationship (eventuallymarrying in 1934), holding a joint exhibition in Wellington in1936 before relocating to London that same year. They had threechildren ‘ including Warwick Blair Hutton (1939’1994) whowas to become a noted artist, glass engraver and illustrator ‘ andcontinued to work and exhibit together in England even after theirdivorce in 1960. Blair made distinctive modernist works, often painted with apalette knife. Many of her paintings also contain classical or biblicalreferences, particularly her landscapes, which recall the backdrops tothe figure paintings of the Old Masters. Later in life she turned to making collages were mostly non-figurative (although sometimes one or two small images of people appeared in them). Many of these were shown at exhibitions in Cambridge where she lived until her death in 1997. She wrote a book on Collage (The Technique of Collage) and also wrote other books – on Rug weaving, Gemstone craft, Mosaics and Woven structures.

Artworks by the same artist