Self portrait

Arthur Boyd AC OBE (1920–1999), painter, potter and printmaker, was one of Australia's greatest artists. From an artistic family, he began making paintings as a boy and developed a vigorous and expressive style. Although better known for his landscapes and mythical subjects, Boyd made a number of paintings of family and friends, and several self portraits. This one was painted in 1964 when Boyd was living in England. Aged 44, he had just finished a productive period working on set and costume designs for the Royal Ballet production of Elektra. Unlike much of Boyd's portraiture in which heads emerge out of a dark background, this self-portrait is painted on a simple white background using a neutral palette. Similar to his earliest self portrait, painted when he was seventeen, his penetrating eyes gaze off into the distance, but this time he looks apprehensive rather than determined, perhaps in response to his sadness following the death of his parents earlier in the decade. Returning to Australia in the early 1970s, Boyd bought a property on the Shoalhaven River on the south coast of New South Wales, Bundanon, which he subsequently gave to the Australian people. In 1975 he made an immense gift of his own work to the National Gallery of Australia.

Gift of Denis Savill 2021. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Bundanon Trust