Arthur Boyd (1920–1999), painter, potter and printmaker, was from a family of distinguished artists and attended classes at the National Gallery School in Melbourne before opting to live with his grandfather, Arthur Merric Boyd, and learn from him. Conscripted on the outbreak of World War 2, he served with the Cartographic Unit between 1941 and 1944. Though he never saw any action, the horrors of the war supplied the subject matter for Boyd’s work, his intense, dark and expressionistic vision shared by his friends Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and John Perceval. His work of the late 1940s explored current events through stories from the Bible; and his Half-caste bride series of paintings of the 1950s raised issues about the treatment of Aboriginal people. He moved to London with his family in 1959, but continued to draw on Australian subjects, achieving critical acclaim for a 1960 solo exhibition of his Bride paintings. In 1966, he worked with the Australian Ballet, designing the sets and costumes for Robert Helpmann’s Electra. Returning to Australia in 1971, he eventually settled at Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River; the property was gifted to Australian people by Boyd and his wife Yvonne in 1993.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
© Estate of Axel Poignant
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Patrick McCaughey explores a striking Boyd self portrait.
Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.
