David Boyd

David Boyd
(1924-2011)

David Boyd was an extremely gifted artist and craftsman, equally well-known as a superb ceramic artist and a member of the Boyd dynasty. As well as a painter and potter he was an accomplished print maker and produced many etchings, lithographs and silkscreens. In the earlier stages of his career, he was one of seven members of Bernard Smith’s Antipodean group of renowned figurative artists, joining his elder brother Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh.

Boyd's paintings have primarily been produced in series. As a dedicated figurative artist, he draws his themes from the world around him and his works resonate with powerful imagery. Boyd’s artwork is full of moral commitment and his paintings are the work of an impassioned humanist. Concerned with innocence and evil, destruction and creation, they depict the themes of the universe and mythology. Boyd has often been referred to as a moral painter, although his intention is to illuminate the grey and murky areas of the human psyche.

A number of these evolved into significant bodies of work, including the powerful Trial series, the Tasmanian Aborigines, the Wanderer and Exiles series, full of social comment and creating great controversy. Other subjects included romanticised works based on historical themes such as The Law, The Church and The State. A critic once said that there are few painters of the quality of David Boyd who paint about the outrages and crimes of our time.

Throughout his career Boyd’s work always remained distinctive, redolent with colour and flowing textured brushstrokes. While only in his twenties he had a
 


solid reputation as a painter, potter and ceramic sculptor, later becoming Chairman of the Contemporary Arts Society of Australia. At this time he won an Italian Government Scholarship which allowed him to work and travel in Italy. From Italy he moved to England where he exhibited his famous Trial paintings.

Boyd continually held international & national exhibitions from the 1950’s onwards. Having won significant international recognition in 1969 he was invited by the Commonwealth Institute in London to hold a retrospective at their Art Gallery. In the 1970’s he spent a year in France with his family and upon his return produced some of his most delightful work, combining angels, aborigines and children dancing through his beloved Australian bush. This exhibited series of mythological paintings became known as “Orchard of Heaven”.

During the next twenty years Boyd travelled and exhibited internationally & nationally. His beautiful wombat and loosely clad children from his “Europa” series have been very popular with the public. The richly decorated apple trees and the peek-a-boo faces of the children peering out from behind the bushes or frolicking at the water’s edge fill the viewer’s heart with a warm glow. Boyd was a distinguished world-class artist whose work continues to cause a definite emotional reaction from his public. “Music and the Angels” was the subject of a 2-part television documentary.

His many achievements & awards include appointment as a member of the International Academy of Modern Art, Rome, Italy (1998); awarded first prize, Italian Art Scholarship for Australia; Chairman of the Federal
Council of the Contemporary Art Society of Australia; President of the Contemporary Art Society (Victorian branch) and elected Councillor of the Museum of Modern Art of Australia

David Boyd is represented in the Australian National Gallery, Canberra; all State and many regional galleries; the Australian War Memorial, Canberra; numerous Australian universities, the Mertz collection, USA; the Power Collection, Sydney and very many major international galleries and private collections in Australia.