Cyril's Kite over Blackwoods Hill | Etching 67 of 75

About the Artwork

Cyril’s Kite over Blackwood’s Hill is a 15" × 36" colour etching and aquatint by David Blackwood, edition 67/75. Set in Wesleyville, Newfoundland, the composition gathers the houses and topography of Blackwood’s childhood street, viewed from the rise he called Blackwood’s Hill.

The homes are all real and identified in a letter and hand-drawn map that Blackwood sent to West End Gallery in 1996. At the centre stands his grandparents’ home and general store—the house where three generations of his family were born. To the left is the Winsor family home, while on the right appear the neighbouring houses of Ephraim Kelloway, William Fifield, and Cyril Best. In the distance, the ridge most likely represents Bennett’s (High) Island with its coastal light, linking this work to other Wesleyville scenes in Blackwood’s Newfoundland cycle.

The Kelloway houses—neighbours of the artist’s family—held lasting importance in Blackwood’s art. In a 1990 letter, he recalled Alphus, Jacob, and Ephraim Kelloway and described Ephraim’s habit of painting and decorating his barn door in countless colours and patterns throughout the 1950s. That memory inspired the etching Ephraim Kelloway’s Door (1981) and later reappeared in Passing Shadow (1990). The same neighbourhood re-emerges here in Cyril’s Kite over Blackwood’s Hill, uniting a lifetime of imagery rooted in community, perseverance, and imagination.

The white kite arcs across the night sky, its tail made—as the artist fondly noted—from rolled pages of Eaton’s and Simpsons catalogues. This small detail connects craft and memory, transforming the ordinary into a symbol of freedom and homecoming.

Dimensions and Details

• Size: 15" × 36" (plate)
• Medium: Colour etching and aquatint on paper
• Edition: 67/75
• Display: Professionally framed and archivally presented

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Archival Note

This artwork has been cross-referenced with a handwritten map and letter dated 1996 in the West End Gallery archives, together with a 1990 letter in which the artist recounts the story of Ephraim Kelloway’s door. These documents identify each home and reveal the enduring influence of the Kelloway houses across several decades of Blackwood’s art.