David Boyd OAM (1924–2011)
SELLING EXHIBITION JUNE–JULY 2022
David Boyd OAM (1924–2011)
SELLING EXHIBITION JUNE 18 – JULY 8 2022
OPENING DAY
Saturday 18 June, 3pm–5pm David Boyd’s Grand-daughters, Jesamine Boyd and Cressida O’Hanlon, will attend the exhibition opening and present a questions and answers session. Please RSVP for attendance as numbers are limited: mail@artvisory.com.au 03 9826 4039
ON VIEW
Tuesday 21 June – Friday 8 July 2022, 11am–5pm (Tuesday–Saturday inclusive)
ADDRESS
310 Toorak Road, South Yarra VIC 3141
ONLINE
www.artvisory.com.au
ENQUIRIES
Paul Sumner 0412 337 827 paul@artvisory.com.au
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A foreword by David Boyd’s granddaughter Jesamine Boyd ‘I used to consider myself to be a rebel in exile, but I don’t any longer …’ In the two decades prior to making this remark in an interview for The Australian in 1971, David Boyd had often felt as though he was the ‘rebel in exile’. Having embarked on the voyage with his wife Hermia, to England in 1950 and etching out the early stages of his artistic career both there and on the continent, often the commentary in his paintings on the social injustices occurring in a past and present tense, found himself caught up in an international bind or two. If rumours are to be true, in 1965, after the opening of the Church and State series at Zwemmer Gallery in London, he was gestured to one side and in a quiet whisper advised not to return to Spain whilst Franco remained in power. Concerned with ideas of morality in its deepest sense, David Boyd was not afraid to speak up, and rebel against the unholy alliances that preyed on the less fortunate in society. Ideas of Australian exploration, reignited after a visit to The Sydney Yacht club in 1969, was the background for the Wanderer series. Seeing the remains of a yacht, Wanderer, in the foyer of the club, belonging to a Benjamin Boyd, naturally with the same family name David’s curiosity was heightened as much into an examination of Ben Boyd's family lineage and the possibilities of a
connection, as to his exploits as a businessman, entrepreneur and adventurer. David identified with the rebel in Ben Boyd, a man who rumoredly left the shackles of his own land and embarked on a journey to fulfil, what may be considered, childhood dreams of fame and fortune, sailing the high seas and becoming King of a far away land. And whilst the “rebel” in the man that held the same family name as himself was fascinating to David, as he learned of the morally unjust ways in which Benjamin Boyd set about achieving his fame and fortune in no way did he agree with his methods of obtaining it. The paintings that formed the Wanderer series ultimately were interpretations of the motivations of Ben Boyd. Through guesticularly bold brush strokes David seriously examined and cheekily made fun of Ben Boyd’s methods of pursuing fame and fortune. Early paintings were centred around the ideas of childhood dreams and the Europa fantasy of conquering the world. As the evolution of the series drew away from these ideas David found his attention being drawn to part of the series involving the Old King succumbing to his kingdom, which together with the children would form the beginning of a trio of series that was to be painted in the south of France from 1970 to 1974; Orchard in Heaven, Garden in the Wilderness and The Exiles.
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In Orchard in Heaven we see a transition to a poetically lyrical interpretation of the attitudes of the young people of the 70’s. Themes within this series revolved around ideas of the reappraisal of christian values, the shedding of archaic trappings and the rejection of old traditions by the youth of the day. The central figure of the series is the Goddess of Fruit, a symbol of freedom from prejudice and greed and expressing the abundance of life and the protective nature of love. The dream like qualities of the paintings are set down in broad brushstrokes with an emphasis on openness and the clash of unrelated colour areas of emeralds, vivid blues and fiery reds and yellows, and as Frederic Rogers was to write in the Sunday Mail, 13 June 1971, ‘… this is an engaging series of paintings full of imagery, full of innocence and above all full of colour. It is a showing that refreshes the spirits whilst it delights the eye and stimulates the imagination.’ This subject matter and painterly flavour carried over from Orchard of Heaven to the Garden in the Wilderness series, a title derived from David’s own private and personal dreams of his childhood garden at the family home in Murrumbeena. Involving a kind of memory painting, looking back into himself seeing splashes of flowers, the wattle tree and fruit trees of the orchard and garden that he and his brothers and sisters roamed and played
in as children. He also carries through references from earlier series, particularly themes on Judas. The Christ and Judas enigma had fascinated David for many years, originally appearing in an early Trial painting ‘The Betrayal’, who had betrayed whom? David returned to this theme to paint a collection of paintings within the series called The Judas Paintings, these related back to the Trial painting, portraying Judas as both child and man, under the scrutiny of angels, Aboriginal Australians, children and the Goddess of Fruit. The final series within the collection of work painted in France was The Exiles. Whilst this series had a somewhat personal theme it more strongly related back to both the Tasmanians and the Wanderer series which had themes concerned with the idea of exile within them. Earlier in his time in Europe, David had felt something of an exile, Bulletin 13 July 1968, however as he later remarked by the early 1970’s he no longer felt this way, he felt more ‘… a creature of the planet with the whole world your oyster, as long as you can get around it’, and so The Exiles became a reflection of earlier series “subjects” feelings of alienation, from a magical homeland or from a land that they could never truly be at home in. Jesamine Boyd
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David Boyd OAM (1924-2011) Left: Murrumbeena 1956
David Fielding Gough Boyd was born into an artistic dynasty at Murrumbeena, Victoria on 23rd of August 1924 and was the youngest of three sons to Merric Boyd and Doris Boyd nee Gough. As a young man Boyd studied painting and pottery and music and was very talented in all these disciplines. At the age of 17, he attended the Melba Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne for advanced piano tuition. However, in 1942, once he turned eighteen, Boyd was conscripted into the Australian army and was forced to give up his studies. After his discharge from the army in 1944, Boyd received an ex-serviceman's grant to study piano at the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music. However he found study difficult and struggled with the formal methods of learning. He was possibly still suffering from the distressing effects of war. Although Boyd loved music and spent hours at the piano improvising, he felt that he was not cut out to be a professional performer or composer. He decided to take up painting and transferred his ex-serviceman's scholarship to the Melbourne National Gallery Art school, where he studied from 1945 to 1946.
During this period, Boyd painted his Soul series, as well as some ‘plein-air’ landscapes for his first two exhibitions with his friend John Yule at the Rowden White Library, University of Melbourne. Unfortunately none of his early efforts succeeded in impressing critics. While his teachers at the National Gallery School found him talented, he was highly individual and difficult to teach. Altogether these difficulties and failures caused Boyd to feel that he had made a bad start at painting and should give it up. David Boyd's father, Merric, was a pioneer of Australian pottery. Influenced by his father and with skills learnt in early childhood, Boyd then decided to concentrate on ceramics. These early works demonstrate his father's influence, but Boyd quickly developed his own individual style, alongside his wife, fellow artist Hermia Lloyd-Jones, whom he had married in 1948. Their partnership was fruitful, with the pair quickly finding critical acclaim both in Australian and Internationally from the mid-1940s until the beginning of the 60s. Eventually, pottery led Boyd back to his original artistic exploits, when a series of ceramic tiles that dealt with biblical themes and explorers,
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Family, Sydney 1958
South of France, c.1970
convinced him to re-try his hand at painting. A series of paintings based on the Australian explorers from his tiles were the theme of his first solo exhibition in 1957. In 1959 David Boyd was a signatory to the Antipodean Manifesto whose charter was to assert the importance of figurative art when they felt that this art form was under attack from very progressive modern art and particularly abstraction. David Boyd participated in the subsequent exhibition: ‘Antipodeans’ at The Victorian Artist Society from August 4-August 15 1959. The Antipodean Group, as they became known, included John Brack, Charles Blackman, Clifton Pugh, John Perceval, Robert Dickerson and the artist’s brother Arthur Boyd. This was a landmark exhibition. Through this exhibition Boyd explored a number of themes that evolved as significant series, including the powerful Trial works, the Tasmanian Aborigines, the Wanderer and Exiles series. The Trial series was continued while Boyd lived in Rome in 1962, before settling in London, and was also the theme of his successful first one-man shows in London and Paris in 1963.
In 1960 David Boyd was elected President of the Contemporary Art Society (Victorian branch) and Councillor of the Museum of Modern Art of Australia. This recognition was followed by his winning first prize in the Italian Art Scholarship for Australia and becoming chairman of the Federal Council of the Contemporary Art Society of Australia, both in 1961. After living in Italy, England, France and Spain during most of the 60s and the early 70s, Boyd finally returned to Australia permanently in 1975. Boyd's paintings were primarily produced in series, each of which took a concept or a theme that, with his fertile imagination, he explored extensively. As a dedicated figurative artist, Boyd drew his themes and inspiration from the world around him, especially focusing on those that arise from oppression and injustice. Boyd has often been referred to as a moral painter, although his intention was not to teach, but rather to illuminate the troublesome areas of the human psyche and to tell a truthful and often uncomfortable history.
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Infants searching for their departed souls while the goddess of fruit comforts the bull oil on canvas signed lower left and dated 1973 lower right and titled and signed and dated to verso as well 90 x 100cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
The Butterfly, 1971 oil on board signed lower left and dated 71 lower right 89 x 98cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
The Guardian, 1974 signed lower left and dated 1974 lower right and titled to verso oil on canvas 72 x 92cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Europa accepting the cloth of gold, 1975 oil on canvas signed and dated 1975 lower left and titled and bearing the series name: The Wanderer 1975 to verso 94 x 104cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Ben Boyd and the sleeping Kanaka, 1970 signed and dated 1970 lower left oil on board 89 x 119cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Judas and the thirty pieces of silver, 1972 oil on canvas signed and dated 1972 lower left and titled to verso 121 x 131cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Presentation of the cup of gold, 1972 signed and dated 1972 lower left oil on canvas 120 x 150.5cm EXHIBITED
David Boyd, Retrospective exhibition, November 21–December 13, 1975 Von Bertouch Galleries Newcastle. Label to verso.
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
The Departure-Wanderer series, 1969 oil on board signed and dated 69 lower right and titled and dated to verso 91 x 121cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Mother Dog and Pups, 1974 signed lower left and dated lower right and titled to verso oil on canvas 130 x 160cm
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
A day in the life of a butterfly, 1974 oil on canvas signed lower left and dated 1974 lower right 149 x 155cm EXHIBITED
David Boyd. Retrospective exhibition, November 21–December 13, 1975 Von Bertouch Galleries Newcastle. Label to verso.
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DAVID BOYD OAM (1924-2011)
Ben Boyd’s last voyage, 1971 oil on board signed lower left and dated lower right and titled fully to verso 45.5 x 58cm
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We look forward to seeing you at our new address 310 TOORAK ROAD SOUTH YARRA, VIC 3141 www.artvisory.com.au
310 Toorak Road South Yarra Victoria 3141 +61 3 9826 4039 | www.artivsory.com.au