David Blackwood
Myth & Legend
One of Canada’s best-known printmakers, David Blackwood (1941–2022) put onto paper an enduring vision of Newfoundland, where he was born and raised. His hauntingly beautiful images draw from personal and communal memory, local tradition, and dreams and legends to capture a way of life that had already begun to vanish during his youth.
Tracing Blackwood’s career from his days as an art student at the Ontario College of Art to his final drawing, David Blackwood: Myth & Legend brings together more than eighty drawings and prints, alongside proofs, copperplates, and archival materials to provide a unique insight into Blackwood’s creative process. Essays by AGO curator Alexa Greist and Amy Marshall Furness, the archivist who has stewarded the acquisition of Blackwood’s extensive personal archives, round out the volume. This stunning combination of work spans Blackwood’s entire career and reveals the creative evolution of one of Newfoundland’s, and Canada’s, most beloved artists.
David Blackwood: Myth & Legend accompanies a retrospective exhibition at the AGO opening in October 2025. Touring dates and locations to be announced.
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Alexa Greist is Curator & R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints and Drawings, at the AGO. She previously held research and curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery. At the AGO, she has curated a wide variety of exhibitions, including Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400–1800; I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces; and Rise of the Rock Poster and the Summer of Love.
