ART  GALLERIES

SCHUBERT

DAVID BOYD Born 1924 Murrumbeena Vic.

David Boyd is an extremely gifted artist and craftsman. He is equally well-known as a superb ceramic artist and painter. His early paintings were full of social comment and created controversy. His Explorer Series depicted Aborigines as gentle frightened

people not wanting to be deprived of their native homeland. Other themes 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. As David himself says:-

“...I believe that man’s place in the universe is much more mysterious than his political environment. I often think of myself as being a spiritual anarchist. This is the social basis of my art, in very loose terms. But painting, if it is to communicate in a forceful way ,works on a number of different levels. The most important for me is its aesthetic merit. I want to combine the narrative qualities of my work with a definite aesthetic appeal”. (The Art of David Boyd, Nancy Benko, Hyde Park Press 1973)

David Boyd played a significant part in the Antipodean group/movement in Australian Art history. The group was dedicated to the figurative image. The Antipodeans reacted not so much against abstract art, as against the pretentiousness of the many converts to abstract expressionism.

Boyd’s work is full of moral commitment. His paintings are the work of an impassioned humanist. While only in his twenties he had a solid reputation as a painter, potter and ceramic sculptor. Later he became Chairman of the Contemporary Arts Society of Australia. At this time we won an Italian Government Scholarship which allowed him to work and travel in Italy.

Throughout his career his work has always remained distinctive. From Italy he moved to England where he exhibited his famous Trail paintings. He received favourable reviews:-

“...There is no denying (Boyd’s ) excellence as a painter, he is a born draughtsman.  Drawing can be taught, but draughtsmanship never;” (The Art of David Boyd Nancy Benko, Hyde Park Press, 1973)

In France, as well Boyd received reviews that prised his work:-

“...His (Boyd’s) painting is highly dramatic. As a committed painter, David Boyd offers us a courageous reflection on the human condition. It is an exhibition which makes one ponder. It deserves interest and respect.” 

Boyd has continually held exhibitions throughout Australia and overseas from the 1950’s onwards.

In 1969 he was invited by the Commonwealth Institute, London to hold a retrospective exhibition. The introduction to the catalogue written by Professor Bernard Smith the then Professor of Contemporary Art in the University of Sydney summed up the work and position of David Boyd in the Australian art scene when he wrote:-

This exhibition represents a personal victory over fashion. For ten years David Boyd has painted against the current mainstream and for ten years Australian critics subjected his art to severe criticism. But during the last twelve months or so the hostility has weakened; revised opinions are beginning to appear. What was really at issue was not so much the quality of the paintings as the validity of his position..  Moral values, the human condition, might well have inspired so it was argued, great art in the past.  But painting had now exhausted these positions. They were no longer available for the artist of the nineteen sixties. The criticism has not mattered much.  David Boyd has continued to paint in his own personal manner and to find an audience and a growing market for his art in Australia and Britain.  He has found that there is still a place for a moral painter.” (The Art of David Boyd, Nancy Benko, Hyde Park Press 1973)

In the 1970’s Boyd and his family travelled to France where they stayed for one year.

On their return Boyd produced some of this most delightful work, combining angels, aborigines and children dancing through his beloved Australian bush. He exhibited a series of these mythological paintings “Orchard of Heaven”. During the next twenty years he travelled and exhibited overseas and in Australia.

Boyd’s beautiful wombat and loosely clad children from his Europa series have been favourite 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 is a world class artist whose work always causes a definite emotional reaction from his public. Always true to his thoughts and feelings he remains a distinguished Australian artist. 

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