About Christopher Blake

Born on 16 February 1930 in Shanghai, China, with his twin brother George Patrick Hamilton, to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Blake; Christopher Blake’s interest in pencil and paint could be observed from an early age. At the age of 4 years, while living in Tianjin, China, Christopher would avidly apply colour to colouring in books featuring Chinese and Western characters. At the age of 9, he would illustrate war time scenes of military aircraft, German bombs and warships. He continued to further his artistic skills by taking lessons when visiting his Aunt Dorothea Maclagan, who was an established watercolour artist and a personal art tutor to Sir Winston Churchill’s children. During his childhood, he was exposed to numerous relations who were known for their artistic talent or Christian missionary work.

His father was an executive for the Asiatic Petroleum Company, a joint venture between the Shell and the Royal Dutch oil companies. The company operated in Asia in the early 20th century with its corporate headquarters on The Bund, Shanghai. A year after his birth, Christopher set sail with his family to England aboard the steamship Anchises, which 10 years later was later sunk in a German aircraft bombing off the Isle of Aran. The voyage took 42 days and stopped in Yokohama and Port Said along the way. He was introduced to his family in England while staying with his grandparents in Wimbledon, London. In October 1931, after a British summer, he returned to China with his family aboard the P&O steamship Rajputana, which 10 years later also sunk, off the coast of Iceland following German torpedo attack. Upon their return to China, the family moved to the North East city of Tianjin, where his father continued his work in the petroleum business. In their journals, he and his twin recount their enjoyment of visiting the local seaside town of Peitaiho, where they would avidly enjoy sailing together.

Christopher had grown restless of his post National Service life in England and travelled to North Borneo to start his new line of work as a merchant for The Borneo Company. The Borneo Company was founded in London in 1856 by the first Rajah of Sarawak, James Brooke. Initially, it was given all rights in return for royalties to the Sarawak Treasury to “take over and work mines, ores, veins or seams of all descriptions of minerals in the Island of Borneo, and to barter or sell the produce of such workings”. The Borneo Company offices in Kuching from the 1950’s were located on the property now occupied by the Hilton Hotel Kuching which was a location Christopher would fondly recount in his journals “Anna and I would spend many an evening walking along the Kuching riverfront, adorned with its fleet of fishing boats, wooden houses built upon stilts from where hawkers ply their trade”. During the early years of The Borneo Company, it was entrusted to mine for gold in the Bau area as well as to print the currency of the Rajah. It had virtually similar functions and duties to that of the Crown Agents to the Monarchy of Great Britain. As such, all of the company’s managers and employees were expatriate English merchants and traders sent to North Borneo from the United Kingdom. It was not until the 1950’s that a few local Sarawakians were appointed to responsible positions of executives and managers; Christopher was responsible for mentoring many of them. By then the company’s scope and range of business had extended to travel and shipping, insurance and brokerage, as well as its main stay of import and export of all kinds of consumer and technical products. The brands that the company represented and were sole agents for were internationally recognised market leaders.

During the period Christopher lived in Kuching, in his spare time, he spent much of his time with local Dayak families, within the many longhouses in the Sarawak rainforest. His interest in the local flora and fauna brought about the start of a massive project, the painting of hundreds of botanical illustrations. Part of Christopher’s collection of paintings, which include exotic orchids, wild-flowers, fish, birds, and shells were entrusted into the care of the Sarawak Museum; where they continue to be exhibited within the air-conditioned gallery of the Old Museum Building. His paintings have been admired the world around with his first exhibition featuring at The Coronation Agri-Horticultural Show on 30 May 1953 in Kuching.

In the mid-1970’s, after working in Australia, New Zealand and for a short time in Canada, Christopher, who had become a perpetual traveller, joined his twin brother for a return to life in England. Christopher’s varied work experience has encompassed laying railway lines, farming, prospecting for gemstones and psychiatric nursing.

There are recurring themes within Christopher’s paintings, many of which illustrate notes in the journals he had written over a span of three decades. With his ever by his side William Mitchell dip pen and bottle of Winsor & Newton Indian ink, a notebook was only always within arm’s reach.

Christopher depicts periods of despondency from the time he resided at the Church Army hostel for the homeless in Oxford, an era from where many of his portraits of individuals who had stories of having been treated with great cruelty or having suffered grave personal hardship to share were painted; to the time he suffered from his ischemic stroke, leaving him hospitalised and frustrated. His journals frequently mention the twin brother, with whom he would travel the world extensively and who was later to become his full-time carer. Behind one watercolour portrait of his brother, Christopher refers in his notes to “My dear identical twin. Carer, confidant and friend. For being a twin I am blessed“.

While some have said that Christopher’s religious art illustrate thoughts considered particularly dark and possibly even morose, others have seen a deeper substance of hope and spirituality. He illustrated few cityscapes and landscapes, possibly due to his limited mobility, reliance on public transport and need for home care. Many of his expressionism and genre scene paintings depict images of courage and joy, which he claimed to be manifest from his Christian faith. Almost all of his works include a short explanatory caption on the back of the painting; Christopher recalled the time when one of his friends with whom he would work on the Queensland railways was fatally injured by a piece of railway track that has been dropped “Working in the Queensland heat one had to be careful if a piece of railway track were to be dropped by the gang. Dropped track would jump and wriggle like rubber causing great injury to anyone nearby. We would regularly take ‘smoko’ breaks and discuss each other’s backgrounds and origins”.