Sold at Auction: Simon Anthony James Blackwood

Blackwood studied in the Colchester School of Art between 1965 and 1967 and in the Coventry School of Art from 1967 through 1970. After completing school, he worked in London as an assistant to Mike Sandle, a sculptor, and Barbara Reis, an art historian, on her book about WM Turner. Between 1971 and 1972 he studied at the Academy for Continuous Education under John G. Bennett. While there he met Gerald Wilde, a member of the Bloomsbury set, whom he cared for until Wilde's death in 1986. Blackwood became a founding member of the Beshara Design Center and the Rotherhythe Workshops Ltd. in London. He raised funds for the conversion of the Docklands Warehouses to provide artists and designers with studios and as a center for the performing arts. In 1976 the Riverside Dance Center opened and performed at the Docklands Warehouse.

In 1976, Blackwood studied in Gloucester at the Beshara School of Intensive Esoteric Education. Following his studies, he traveled throughout Europe and the Near East. In 1981, he established a new studio on the Scottish Borders where he developed a gallery and picture conservation center. Between 1988 and 1998 Blackwood opened a new studio in Istanbul, Turkey. He then received a commission in 1989 to live in Provence and work on a series of seven paintings for the Chateau du Tourreau, Vaucluse. In 2008 he built and moved to an Eco-studio in the Scottish Borders.

His exhibitions include many one-man shows and group exhibitions in England, Scotland and Istanbul. His paintings are owned by many public and private collections ranging geographically from Turkey to Japan.

The paintings made by Blackwood display an amazing sense of gorgeous impressionistic color seemingly abstracted from real visual landscape experiences in what has been called “color-field” painting.