Born in Falkirk in 1931, Dame Elizabeth Blackadder studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1949 to 1955 under renowned artists including Robert Philipson, William MacTaggart, and William Gillies. During her time on the joint Fine Art course, she also received art history tuition from the esteemed David Talbot Rice, whose influence encouraged her growing interest in global cultures and artistic traditions.
In 1954, Blackadder was awarded a travelling scholarship, allowing her to visit Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia, where she became fascinated by Byzantine art and mosaics. A further scholarship to Italy in 1955 deepened her exposure to early Renaissance art and introduced her to contemporary figures such as Giorgio Morandi, whose sparse still lifes would later influence her own distinctive style. Drawings from these early travels reveal Blackadder's exceptional draughtsmanship, a skill that has remained fundamental to her practice throughout her six-decade career.
In 1956, Blackadder married the Scottish landscape painter John Houston. Their shared passion for travel enriched their artistic perspectives, inspiring a mutual expansion of visual vocabulary across cultures and landscapes.
Although Blackadder remained rooted in figurative work, she embraced many ideas emerging from the non-figurative revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. While she explored landscape painting in the early 1960s, echoing the style of Gillies, by 1965 she began innovating in still life painting. Drawing inspiration from artists like Anne Redpath and the Edinburgh School, she combined their influences with her own distinct vision, referencing sources as diverse as Mughal miniatures and colour-field abstraction.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Elizabeth Blackadder refined her approach across different genres. Her botanical paintings grew increasingly detailed, while her landscapes became more simplified and meditative. Her still lifes evolved towards a flattened, perspective-free composition, where carefully chosen objects - from toys to Japanese and Indian prints - float in open space. These compositions often incorporate elements borrowed from Mughal and Japanese art, such as the use of partial painted frames, anchoring the imagery within an ambient space.
Today, Dame Elizabeth Blackadder is recognised as one of Scotland’s most important artists, celebrated for her delicate balance of technical precision, cultural curiosity, and innovative visual language.
