Gregory Blackstock

Drawings and Prints

January 4 - February 10, 2024

Opening Reception: “First Thursday,” January 4, 6-8pm
Artist talk: “Saturday After”, June 6 at noon, Dorothy Frisch, Blackstock’s cousin and advocate, will speak about his work

Gregory Blackstock began drawing regularly in his mid-40s, cataloguing the world around him just as a botanist might classify plants in terms of families, species and genus, or an entomologist might arrange the various types of insects within his collection. The artist, who was autistic, had a prodigious memory for visual objects, musical tone and compositions, and foreign languages. As a “prodigious savant,” his need to make sense of and define an unpredictable world was given the most deeply satisfying outlet in his art. 

For Blackstock, the world was made up of countless things which needed to be identified, ordered, and arranged. One thing or another was seemingly of no greater weight but, once he decided to draw the chosen subject, he sought to record all of the specific variations within that group.

This exhibition features a selection of drawings and prints reflecting the range of the artist’s oeuvre. Images taken from his taxonomies of the natural world (birds, animals, insects, plants, “weathers”) are seen in context with his encyclopedic view of the manmade world (clothing, cars, buildings, tools) to create the macrocosm which is Blackstock’s world.

Work in exhibition