Arthur Boyd

Arthur Boyd (born July 24, 1920, Murrumbeena, Victoria, Australia—died April 24, 1999, Melbourne) was an Australian painter and ceramic pottery maker. His best-known works included impressionistic paintings of the Australian bush, or countryside, and expressionistic depictions of the maimed and dispossessed. Boyd’s work often dealt with humanitarian issues as well as themes of love, loss, and shame.

Born into a family of artists, Boyd left school at the age of 14 to devote himself to painting. However, his parents’ marriage was troubled, and his father faced financial ruin after his studio burned down. Boyd lived and traveled with his grandfather, the artist Arthur Merric Boyd, and took night classes at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, Victoria. The younger Boyd was drafted into the Australian Army Service Corps in 1942 and served in the army’s mapmaking unit. His experiences of suffering and destruction during that time influenced his work.

During his travels throughout Australia in the late 1950s Boyd was distressed to see Aboriginal peoples living in poverty. He thereafter produced a celebrated series of more than 30 paintings, Love, Marriage and Death of a Half Caste (commonly known as the Bride series) in which he effectively documented the Australian government’s neglect of Aboriginal peoples and the difficult conditions in which they lived.

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In 1959 Boyd helped to found the Antipodean group of artists. The Antipodeans, most of whom were from Melbourne, stressed the importance of realistic figurative painting, in stark contrast to the styles of abstract painting and sculpture then widely practiced in both Europe and the United States. The Antipodeans staged one exhibition in Melbourne, in which Boyd participated. Boyd then visited art museums in London, England, and ended up staying there for several years. During that time he produced his Nebuchadnezzar series of paintings as a response to the Vietnam War. He returned to Australia in 1971 and settled in New South Wales, where he concentrated on painting landscapes.

Besides painting, Boyd produced pottery and designed theatre sets. He also illustrated books, including Peter Porter’s poetry collections Jonah (1973) and The Lady and the Unicorn (1975). In 1993 Boyd and his wife, Yvonne Lennie, donated their 2,500-acre (1,000-hectare) estate in Bundanon to the Australian government for use by visiting artists and scientists.

Boyd received many honours and awards during his career. He became an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970, an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1979, and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1992. In 1995 the Australia Day Council named him Australian of the Year.