KANSAS CITY, MO.- A significant presence in the art world since the 1970’s, Edward (Ed) Madison Blackburn III died peacefully of natural causes on July 31, 2022. He was preceded by the passing of his wife, the artist Linda Blackburn, on January 2, 2022.

Ed Blackburn was primarily known as a painter but he also worked as a printmaker, writer, poet, musician and filmmaker. He’s most closely associated with Photorealism, Pop Art, and images drawn from various types of popular media, but overall his work defies categorization. He leaves a lasting legacy on the Texas and American art scene. Throughout his career he also produced paintings based on biblical themes which have now emerged as some of his most significant works: his image of the story Jesus and the Money Changers is in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art, Road to Emmaus is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Cain and Able is in the collection of the Kemper Museum of Kansas City, Missouri.

He received a B.F.A. in Painting from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1962, and an M.A. in Painting from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965. During the 1970s he established a studio he referred to as the Main Street Image Company, in downtown Fort Worth. There he frequently collaborated with studio mates and fellow Texas Artists Vernon Fisher and Jim Malone.

Ed and his wife Linda collaborated on many projects, including a group of paintings produced in the 1990s broadly known as The Adventures of Eddie Leon under the pseudonym Ray Madison. In 2007, they produced a feature-length film, The Lonesome Utrillo (in collaboration with the artist Brian Fridge).

He was a teacher, mentor, and friend to many and his presence will be deeply missed. He taught painting and drawing at the University of North Texas, Denton, for over 20 years. During his long career he was awarded two National Endowment for the Arts awards for painting and in 2010 was awarded the Distinguished Texas Artist Award.

His paintings are in significant public collections that include: Amarillo Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Mint Museum of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Nerman Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Old Jail Art Museum, San Antonio Museum of Art and Tyler Museum of Art. He also created a floor mosaic (with Linda Blackburn) that is permanently installed at DFW Airport.

His work is represented in Fort Worth by the Gallery ArtSpaceIII.