The Blue Alice is a major work from the important first series of 41 paintings by Charles Blackman, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s books Alice’s adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1872). The Blue Alice is not identified with any specific episode from Lewis Carroll’s books, but testifies more generally to the delicious unreality that pervades his stories.

In The Blue Alice we see Alice in the company of an animal with the White Rabbit’s distinctive white coat, but the long ears of the March Hare (from Alice seventh chapter, ‘A mad tea-party’). The Dormouse is visible in three places: just behind Alice on the right; sitting on the chair on the left; and, again, in a fragmentary and monstrous form, underneath the same chair.

Alice floats in a sea of brilliant white flowers, possibly suggested by the beautiful ‘Garden of Live Flowers’ (chapter two) from Through the Looking Glass. Like many of the female characters in Blackman’s paintings, Alice’s eyes are closed, giving reference to his wife, Barbara Blackman, who was blind. Her experience with progressive blindness deeply influenced Charles, who saw her attempts to interpret the world as parallel to Alice’s efforts to conquer the mysterious circumstances in which she found herself.

Blackman’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ series is a good example of a body of work exploring a particular theme. Blackman’s personal interpretation of both Alice’s experiences and the characters from the story, were a springboard for his own reflections on his wife’s experiences and courage. Each painting places Alice in differing situations evoking various emotive responses. They are not merely illustrations of the story but scenarios filled with personal symbolism; the various stimuli of Surrealism, Barbara’s blindness and Alice’s adventure.