Elva Joan Blacker

Elva Joan Blacker (1908 – 10 April 1984) was an English painter, known for her depictions of Royal Air Force personnel during World War II.

Early life

Blacker was born at Carshalton in 1908 and raised, initially in a flat above 130 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, where her father, William Harry Blacker, worked as a photographer, with his own studio. The family later lived in a five bedroom house at Egmont Corner.

She was a life-long vegetarian.

In December 1944, she was attached to No. 6091 Servicing Echelon at RAF Manston, providing ground support for the Spitfires of No. 91 Squadron. In 1957 she attended a conference on vegetarianism, in India ). She then undertook a year-long tour of South-East Asia. Percy Bernard, 5th Earl of Bandon, who was Air Staff Officer, South East Asia Command, sat for a portrait that is now in the RAF Museum. In Kuala Lumpur, one of her paintings was purchased by Raja Permaisuri Agong, Tunku Puan Besar Kurshiah.

Around 1960, she returned to India to undertake further portrait commissions, including for Colonel Sir Budah Singh.

Death and legacy

Blacker continued to paint until, in her sixties, failing eyesight forced her to stop. and a portrait of Alderman William Tuckett Venton, Mayor of Sutton and Cheam, owned by the London Borough of Sutton. A painting in Hereford County Hospital is also attributed to her.

Her painting Altar at St George’s Chapel, of the chapel at Biggin Hill, survived the destruction of that chapel by fire, as she had borrowed it for an exhibition. Once the rebuilt chapel, now the Biggin Hill Memorial Museum, was completed, she returned it there.

An exhibition of her work was held by the RAF Museum in 2001 and 2002, first at their RAF Cosford base, then at their museum at Hendon.

General Sir Jeremy Blacker was her nephew.