Championed by Jim Ede in the early 1960s and short-listed for the Gregory Fellowship in painting, John Blackburn's name has since fallen into obscurity, largely by his own design. Until this summer's exhibition at the Metropole Galleries in Folkestone, Blackburn's work had not appeared in a commercial environment since 1968. Nevertheless, during the intervening years he has built up a remarkable body of highly innovative work which is now held in the collections of Paul Zuckerman, the Duchess of Westminster and Viscount Folkestone, Cambridge, Kent, Essex, Newcastle and Dublin Universities as well as the permanent and loan collection of Kettle's Yard in Cambridge.