Claudia Massie

Move fast to snap up one of Elizabeth Blackadder’s sleek cats at the Scottish Gallery

Whether she was painting cats or abstracts, the retrospective proves she never lost her inventiveness, or her eye for colour, pattern and detail

‘Japanese Plate and Wooden Fruit’ , 2009, by Elizabeth Blackadder. Credit: Scottish Gallery 
issue 29 July 2023

If there’s one thing the internet knows, it’s that cats sell. The Scottish painter Elizabeth Blackadder, who died in 2021 at the age of 89, knew it too. Her sinuous, characterful cat pictures, watercolours mostly but also oils and prints, helped cement her place as the nation’s favourite painter. She was an establishment favourite too, becoming the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy in London.

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