Elizabeth Blackadder - artist

Elizabeth Blackadder, the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy was in Stirling University today for the opening of her joint exhibition "Journeys Together" with that of her late husband John Houston.

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This quiet, shy unassuming octogenarian has dedicated her life to painting and is one of the most successful and popular of living artists in Britain today.


A number of years ago I attended a summer school organised by Edinburgh College of Art and we visited Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston in their Edinburgh home.
I remember her cats, subject of so many paintings, lolling on the stairs oblivious to the curious gaze of visiting art students.

I remember also that Elizabeth had two huge studios - one for watercolour painting and another for oils.
John Houston, a colourful expressionist painter had an equally grand studio.

Theirs was an idyllic artist existence; a life devoted to making art, with all their studios under one roof.


It was the kind of set up that artists can but dream of in their wildest moments.

Between them they have produced a body of work that assures them a secure place in the canon of art history.