Linda Blackburn was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1941. In 1962, she earned a BFA in painting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she met her future husband, Ed Blackburn.
Ed Blackburn was bron in Amarillo, Texas in 1940. In 1965, he earned his MA in Painting from the University of California, Berkeley, and was reunited with Linda who was in the same graduate program.
The two moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1965 to teach painting at the art school at the Fort Worth Art Center, which would later become The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Both Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn would hold various positions at the museum throughout their time there. Mrs. Blackburn worked with the print collection, served as a curator, and for a short time served as co-acting director with Jim Malone. During the 1970s Mr. Blackburn 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.
Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn collaborated on many projects, including a group of paintings produced in the 1990s broadly known as The Adventures of Eddie Leon, which they made under the pseudonym Ray Madison. In 2007, they produced a feature-length film, The Lonesome Utrillo, in collaboration with the artist Brian Fridge.
The artist pair also created a floor mosaic, which is permanently installed at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Ed and Linda Blackburn’s work continues to be represented in Fort Worth by Artspace111.