What’s with all the children of famous artists now making art? Take Auguste Blackman and David Hart for example - both sons of Aussie art icons, both artists. Their careers, like all artist’s careers, reference and re-make art history from a unique, personal point of view. For David and Auguste however, these perspectives meet in a number of ways.  

Auguste grew up in his dad’s - Charles Blackman’s - studio. Blackman senior’s Alice, now a staple of our art cannon, was a prominent childhood figure for his son. Auguste tells a wonderful story about he and his father slipping a note under the door of Auguste’s school to say he could not attend that day, so that he could stay in the studio with his father and watch him ‘push paint around’.

David Hart grew up in a home that fostered creativity and fun. David watched his father - the legendary Pro Hart - at work in the studio and he first put paint on canvas while he was still in nappies. He was encouraged but never pushed to explore his creative interests, dabbling in pottery, sculpting, enamelling, casting and welding during his youth. Creating his first serious painting when he was just sixteen years of age, David Hart began his first steps on a journey that would see him become a recognised artist in his own right.

Playing at the feet of their Dads, David and Auguste couldn’t help but catch a thirst for art. Maybe there’s something in the water in artsy homes, maybe it’s in their DNA, or maybe they’re following in the family legacy. Either way, this generation of artists can offer collectors something strangely familiar, yet new and complex. It is here that we find a redux of old favourites that would otherwise be unobtainable.