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Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd AC OBE (20 July
1920 – 24 April 1999) was a member of the
prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia,
with many relatives being painters, sculptors,
architects or other arts professionals. His
sister Mary Boyd married John Perceval, and later
Sidney Nolan. His wife Yvonne Boyd née
Lennie, and daughter Polly are also
painters.
Boyd was born at Murrumbeena, Victoria. He had
no formal training in painting and drawing.
However he studied with his grandfather Arthur
Merric Boyd, the New Zealand born landscape
painter. Boyd is best known for his experimental
and sometimes complex painting of figures, and
impressionist, pastoral landscapes.
His early paintings were portraits and of Port
Phillip Bay created while he was an adolescent,
living in the suburbs of Melbourne. He moved to
the inner city where he was influenced by his
contact with European refugees. Reflecting this
move in the late 1930s, his work moved into a
distinct period of depictions of fanciful
characters in urban settings.
He produced several series of works, including a
collection of 15 biblical paintings based on the
teaching of his mother, Doris Boyd née
Gough. Later he produced a tempera series about
large areas of sky and land, called the Wimmera
series. In the 1940s he was a member of the Angry
Penguins artistic and literary group. His
best-known work is perhaps his Half caste bride
series in the 1950s, which he did based on his
experiences of having direct contact with
Aborigines in Alice Springs in 1951. He
represented Australia with Arthur Streeton at the
Venice Biennale in 1958. He joined the
Antipodeans Group in the Whitechapel
gallery.
Avoiding the social issues raised in works such
as Half Cast Child and feeling drawn to European
styles of painting, Boyd moved permanently to
Hampstead, London in 1960. The same year he held
his first London exhibition. While here, Boyd
entered another distinct period with his works
themed around the idea of metamorphasis.
He started another well known series of works,
Nebuchadnezzar in 1966. This series was a
statement of the human condition and is often
considered to be his most beautiful. Boyd
returned to Australia in 1971. In 1978 he bought
several properties and settled permanently at
Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River. He donated this
1100 hectare property to the people of Australia
in 1993. His creations now focused on the
primeval natural settings found in the Australian
bush and in later years he explored the interplay
between human land use and natural wilderness.
Boyd was enthralled by his position near the
river and by the scale and moods of the valley
landscape.
In 1975 he presented several thousand works to
the National Gallery of Australia. In 1979, he
was honoured with the Order of Australia. He
represented Australia at the Venice Biennale
again in May 2000; his painting Dreaming
Bridegroom I (1957) sold for $957,000. Another
painting of the Bride series, Mourning Bride I
(1958) has sold for $833,000.
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Bundanon was the home of the Arthur Boyd. It was
donated to the people of Australia in 1993 by the
artist, who believed "you can't own a landscape"
and wanted to share the place that inspired him
so much, along with the adjoining property which
had been owned by the artist, Sidney Nolan, with
everyone.
Under the control of the Bundanon Trust the
property is open to the public on the first
Sunday of each month. It also contains an
educational centre and part of the property has
been set up as a constantly evolving studio space
for artists and writers. There are currently four
studios with attached residences and a writers
cottage which are offered meritoriously to a
select group of talented individuals from all
over the world.
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