Bio
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd was born in Murrumbeena Victoria in 1922, His grandparents Arthur Merric Boyd and Emma Minni Boyd started the Boyd art dynasty which defined Australian art still to this day.
Arthur grew up in Murrumbeena and left school at the age of 14.
During that time he attended the Australian National Gallery’s night lessons, he meet Yosl Bergner (Israeli Painter) who was also studying at the gallery before he moved to Poland.
Arthur later moved to Mornington Peninsula to live with his grandfather (Arthur Merric Boyd) which gave way to his advancement of his style and skill.
Later on he moved back down to Melbourne where he meet many refugees which also added to his style of his works, in his early paintings he painted many seascapes around the area of Port Phillip, But by the time he lived in Melbourne for a few years his style changed to urban works depicting colorful characters.
Post World War 2
After the war, Arthur started a group pottery studio in Murrumbeena with artist John Perceval, During the period of the studio he worked with other artists such as John Howley, Neil Douglas and others, he also knew John and Sunday Reed (who formed the Heide Modernist Movement) but kept his distance from there Heide Circle unlike other artists to focus on his works and studio.
In 1945 Arthur married his wife Yvonne Boyd and had three children, Polly Boyd, Jamie Boyd and Lucy Boyd.
During the period of late 1940s-1950s Arthur started travelling north through central Victoria right up to Alice Springs working on his landscape painting and learning more about the aboriginal community, which led to his 31 Painting “Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste Bride” series which had mixed results at the time, but nonetheless considered one of his greatest series.
But by 1959 Arthur and his family moved to London, where he worked on sets for the theater around London, a few years before he moved to London, Arthur was well known as being part of the Antipodeans, A group of well know artists (Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh) who believed that figurative art was a better form compared to the modern abstract art that dominated the market at the time especially art coming out of America to the high galleries of London and Australia, they held exhibitions around Melbourne and then a group exhibition Held with the assistance of British museum director Kenneth Clark London titled “Recent Australia Artist” Which included more Australian artists such as (Jon Molvig, Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams)
The Exhibition was a success with lead to Arthur’s move to London, in counter to the exhibition a group of abstract painters and sculptures “The Sydney 9” (Hector Gilliland, Carl Plate, Leonard Hessing, Stan Rapotec, John Olsen, Robert Klippel, Clement Meadmore and Bill Rose) formed in 1961, held a exhibition in Sydney with also great success.
By 1968, Art dealer Frank McDonald invited Arthur, Yvonne and there family to visit his property by the banks of the Shoalhaven River, on the south coast of New South Wales. A sweltering hot day, Boyd commenced a sketch of the Shoalhaven River, thus beginning a love affair with the region and its many moods and the many different lights. Boyd and his wife proceeded to purchase two properties adjacent to the Shoalhaven River – ‘Riversdale’ and later ‘Bundanon’ – the wild landscape becoming one of Boyd’s most enduring subjects, painted well into his final years and had a large impact in Arthur’s work.
During the period of 1971-1989 Boyd donated a number of works visual and decorative to the national Gallery Of Australia, a ABC and BBC program was aired on the life story of Arthur, Articles in magazines most notably TIME, Designed tapestry’s for the Victorian Arts Centre and Parliament House in Canberra, Represented Australia at the 1988 Venice Biennale and for the first time ever members of the Boyd family (Brothers David and Guy, son Jamie, and nieces Lenore and Tessa Perceval) exhibited together in 1997, Titled “Best Of Boyd” the exhibition was held at the Galeria Aniela Fine Art Gallery NSW, Documentaries and news reports were shown on the ABC.
Boyd was awarded a number of awards and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire and Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the visual arts, Appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia, In 1995 the Prime Minister announced Boyd as Australian of the Year and in 1998 Australia Post honoured Boyd with a series of postage stamps produced with his photo and examples of his work Boyd later died in 1999
