Ron Adams’s masterpiece, Blackburn, pays homage to his friend and colleague with a visual feast of print shop information and technical ability. Adams give us Robert Blackburn lifting a sheet...
Ron Adams’s masterpiece, Blackburn, pays homage to his friend and colleague with a visual feast of print shop information and technical ability. Adams give us Robert Blackburn lifting a sheet from a lithograph stone to reveal the transferred inks. He shows us Blackburn’s physical strength, and his ability to draw figures employing his deep understanding of human anatomy, visible in the muscular arms, and what looks to be his exposed ribcage. The scene is rich with detail from the complex rooftops of New York City viewed through the window balanced by the still life of printing materials and tools. An elegantly dressed gentleman studies the prints hanging on a brick wall turned away from Blackburn at work on a Charles Brand press. The print-within-a print image is more akin to Adams’s work than an example of Blackburn’s design. Adams portrays Blackburn as printing another artist’s prints as he so often did over his storied career.