COMING SOON TO WALL FICTION | THREE DAVID BLACKWOOD PRINTS & THREE CHAPTERS of a REMARKABLE STORY October 14 2026

Something special is coming to Wall Fiction.

David Lloyd Blackwood, "Portait of Herber Fifieldas a Great Mummer", source: davidblackwood.com

We are preparing to release three limited-edition works by celebrated Canadian artist and master printmaker David Lloyd Blackwood (1941–2022):

Molly Glover on Bragg's Island — 1997

Gull Rock Breaking — 2001

Granda Glover's Place on Bragg's Island — 2002

Individually, each is an extraordinary example of Blackwood's work.

Together, they take us directly into the world that inspired so much of his art: family, memory, Newfoundland and the sea.

David Blackwood source: davidblackwood.com

The Island Behind the Art

To understand these works, you first need to know about Bragg's Island.

Located in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, Bragg's Island was home to Blackwood's maternal grandparents, David and Virtue Glover.

Blackwood spent important periods of his childhood there, and the island became much more than a location in his work.

Bragg’s Island became part memory, part history and part mythology.

It was a place of fishermen and family, boats and houses, hard work and security.

And eventually, it became a place that disappeared.

Like many Newfoundland outport communities, Bragg's Island was abandoned during the era of government resettlement. Houses disappeared and families moved away.

But in Blackwood's work, the island remained.

He returned to it repeatedly throughout his career—reconstructing people, places and memories through etching and aquatint.

Two of the three works coming to Wall Fiction take us directly back there.

David Lloyd Blackwood , "Molly Glover on Bragg's Island", 1997 source: wallfiction.com

Molly Glover on Bragg's Island — 1997

This is an especially personal Blackwood.

Molly Glover was David Blackwood's mother.

Rather than one of Blackwood's dramatic images of sealing ships, towering icebergs or men confronting the Atlantic, Molly Glover on Bragg's Island gives us something more intimate.

A woman.

A landscape.

A memory.

Created in 1997 as an etching and aquatint and issued in a limited edition of 75, the work depicts Blackwood's mother as a young woman on Bragg's Island.

The landscape remains unmistakably Blackwood revealing a land atmospheric, windswept and emotionally charged. But Molly Glover on Bragg's Island has a gentleness not always associated with his better-known maritime scenes.

Knowing who the woman is changes the experience of looking at it.

This isn't simply a figure in a Newfoundland landscape.

It is an artist remembering his mother.

David Lloyd Blackwood, "Gull Rock Breaking", 2001 source: wallfiction.com

Gull Rock Breaking — 2001

Four years later came Gull Rock Breaking.

Here we encounter another side of Blackwood, the sea.

Created in 2001, the limited-edition etching and aquatint demonstrates Blackwood's extraordinary ability to turn water, rock and atmosphere into something theatrical.

Blackwood understood the Atlantic intimately.

He grew up in a community shaped by fishermen and sailors, where the sea provided livelihoods but could also take them away in an instant. Throughout his career, he returned to that respected relationship again and again.

In Gull Rock Breaking, landscape becomes the subject.

Water meets rock.

Movement meets permanence.

And a moment in the natural world becomes a story.

David Lloyd Blackwood , "Granda Glover's Place on Bragg's Island", 2002 source: wallfiction.com

Granda Glover's Place on Bragg's Island — 2002

In 2002, Blackwood returned to Bragg's Island.

David Glover, Blackwood's maternal grandfather, was a lifelong cod-trap fisherman and successful merchant who supplied several local outport communities.

Blackwood remembered his grandfather's house vividly standing high on the rocks and overlooking the water.

But when Bragg's Island was resettled, the house disappeared. The artist’s memory didn't.

Granda Glover's Place on Bragg's Island is a sweeping horizontal etching and aquatint that returns us to that place.

This isn't simply an artist drawing an old Newfoundland house. It is an artist reconstructing home. To Blackwood, details matter.

Three Prints. One Larger Story.

That's what makes bringing these three works together particularly exciting.

Molly Glover on Bragg's Island gives us family.

Gull Rock Breaking gives us the sea and landscape.

Granda Glover's Place on Bragg's Island gives us home and memory.

Together, they touch three of the themes that defined Blackwood's extraordinary career.

They also remind us why knowing the story behind an artwork can completely change the way we see it.

Without the story, we see a woman standing in a Newfoundland landscape.

With it, we see Blackwood's mother.

Without the story, we see a house on an island.

With it, we see the home of the grandparents who helped shape Blackwood's childhood and are invited into a community that no longer exists as it once did.

Coming Soon to Wall Fiction

We are thrilled to be preparing these three David Blackwood works for release at Wall Fiction.

Full details, images, edition information and availability will be announced shortly.

For collectors of Blackwood, Canadian printmaking and Newfoundland art, or anyone who simply loves discovering the story behind a work, these are three pieces worth watching for.

David Lloyd Blackwood

Molly Glover on Bragg's Island, 1997
Gull Rock Breaking, 2001
Granda Glover's Place on Bragg's Island, 2002

COMING SOON TO WALL FICTION.