A beautiful river landscape painting of a woman next to the River Avon by William Kay Blacklock. A dark haired woman is depicted sitting on the wall of a riverside garden overlooking the Ham, a loop in the river Avon at Evesham. She wears a white short sleeved dress and carries a hat in her hand with a shawl draped over her arm. Ducks are shown swimming on the opposite side whilst boats and cottages can be seen in the distance. The subject in the painting appears similar to other known paintings of his wife Nellie, who often modelled for him.

William Kay Blacklock was born William Kirkbride Blacklock in 1870 at Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland to William Blacklock and Eleanor Kirkbride. His father worked as a painter but later became a pawnbroker, moving the family to 59 Dock Street in Monkwearmouth. He trained at the Sunderland School of Art but after his father’s death in 1883 and the subsequent change in circumstances, Blacklock began working as a pawnbroker. His mother remarried in 1895 and by 1891, Blacklock was living at 22 Northcote Avenue with his mother and stepfather. During his spare time, he continued to pursue his artistic ambitions and began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1897.

Around 1898, he made the decision to become a full time artist and moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art, where he won the Queen's Prize for Drawing. He lived in Chelsea where he met his future wife the artist Ellen (Nellie) Eliza Richardson (1888-1956). From 1902, he worked at the Edinburgh School of Art, later becoming Head Master of the Edinburgh Academy in 1903. Whilst in Edinburgh, he was commissioned to paint two works to be hung in the chancel of St Andrew's Church, Innerleithen to commemorate Reverend J. G. Ferguson. It was around this period which he began using 'Kay' on his signature, perhaps prompted by the death of his mother in 1901 and also as a way of signalling his career as an artist.

Blacklock returned to the Chelsea area in 1906 and although had moved around, he maintained his connections with his home city. He was one of the founder members of the Stanfield Art Society in Sunderland and also joined the St John’s Lodge Freemasons. In 1909, he married Ellen and the couple lived at 46 Gunter Grove, Chelsea where their only child Eleanor Irene was born in 1910. Like Nellie, Eleanor also became a model for his paintings. Much of his work was of rural landscapes or gardens containing figures as well as more intimate subjects of women and children at home. He worked in both watercolour and oils and as well as travelling around the country with Nellie is also believed to have visited Holland. In addition to exhibiting at the RA he also exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Bewick Club Newcastle and also at exhibitions in Edinburgh.

Sometime around 1912/3, he moved to Walberswick in Suffolk where he and Nellie joined an artists’ colony founded by Philip Wilson Steer, living at The Barn, Walberswick. By 1918 he had moved to Hemingford Abbots, Cambridgeshire where he spent a few years until moving to Stonehaven in Polperro, Cornwall. He died at Stonehaven on 11 August, 1924 at the age of 54. Examples of his work are held by the Cliffe Castle Museum, Royal College of Physicians and Walker Art Gallery Liverpool.

© Benton Fine Art