Description
Provenance:
i Ivanyi Galleries, South Yarra — original bill of sale dated 30 November 1997
ii Estate of Alan & Ada Selwyn, Toorak
iii Acquired by The McCorry Collection, 1 November 2020
Artwork Description:
The Apple Tree on the Edge of Bush is a large, richly coloured Australian landscape that exemplifies David Boyd’s mature synthesis of surrealism, social realism, and expressionism.
Children gather beneath a radiant apple tree positioned at the threshold between cultivated land and bush — a recurring Boyd motif symbolising innocence, vulnerability, and moral tension. Above them, cockatoos cut through the sky, imagery Boyd increasingly employed as symbols of disruption and intrusion into both natural and human worlds.
The composition balances lyricism with psychological unease, reflecting Boyd’s lifelong engagement with the human condition, moral responsibility, and mythic narrative.
Curatorial Note:
The Apple Tree on the Edge of Bush represents an important mature work by David Boyd, bringing together many of the themes that define his contribution to Australian art. The painting balances lyrical landscape with symbolic narrative, where cultivated land and native bush become metaphors for innocence, civilisation and the Australian psyche.
Within The McCorry Collection, this work occupies an important place in the broader Boyd Family collection, demonstrating the continuity of artistic vision that links David Boyd with Arthur Boyd while maintaining his own distinctive visual language.
About David Boyd:
David Boyd (1924–2011) was one of Australia’s most significant post-war painters and a founding member of the Antipodean Group. Born into Australia’s most celebrated artistic family, he developed a distinctive visual language centred on symbolic landscapes, mythology and the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
While many of his contemporaries embraced abstraction during the 1950s, Boyd remained committed to figurative painting. His works frequently explore themes of innocence, morality, spirituality and the Australian landscape through rich colour, poetic symbolism and expressive brushwork.
Today David Boyd’s paintings are represented in the National Gallery of Australia, every major Australian state gallery and numerous important private collections throughout Australia and overseas.
Collector’s Note
This painting represents a strong, mature example of David Boyd’s symbolic landscape work and is a key Boyd painting held within The McCorry Collection. It will later be contextualised within a broader Boyd Family study framework, linking painting, drawing, and pottery across multiple generations.
