Lot #23 - Arthur Boyd
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Auction House:Bonhams Australia
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Sale Name:Important Australian Art
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Sale Date:04 Apr 2023 ~ 6pm (AEST)
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Lot #:23
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Lot Description:Arthur Boyd
(1920-1999)
Potter by his Kiln, 1969
oil on canvas
152.0 x 122.0cm (59 13/16 x 48 1/16in).
signed lower right: 'Arthur Boyd' -
Provenance:Arthur Tooth and Sons, London; Sir Alexander (Alick) Downer KBE, London; The Estate of Sir Alexander Downer; Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne; Private collection, Melbourne
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Exhibited:Arthur Boyd, The Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 10 - 23 August 1969, cat. 12; Arthur Boyd: Recent Paintings, Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, 21 October - 8 November 1969, uncatalogued; Selected Australian Works of Art, Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, 30 June - 11 July 1986 (illus.); On long-term loan to the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, 1995 - 2007
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Notes:Painted in 1969, Potter By His Kiln belongs to a small group of intimate, autobiographical works Boyd painted paying homage to his parents, Merric and Doris Boyd. Merric Boyd the famous artist and ceramicist who had established a reputation as Australia's first studio potter had passed away in 1959. All his belongings, including his drawings had been saved and stored with son Guy Boyd in Brighton. It wasn't until a trip to Australia in the late 1960s, that saw Arthur return to London with several of Merric's works in hand, reflecting on how 'we went away straight after he died and did not come back for seven or eight years. When I came back all of my father's things were packed away. So it was a surprise when I got some of the drawings back to London to find that they still had great energy... Inspired by the energy his father's drawings still held for him, Boyd now made direct reference to his father's pottery designs which he repeated in his own drawings'.1. Recalling his early childhood in Murrumbeena, Boyd found solace within the Potter series. A reprieve from the chaotic, figurative works painted from his imagination such as the Nebuchadnezzar series, executed around the same time. Whilst the landscapes often convey a sense of tranquillity and serenity, a notion explored further in his Shoalhaven subjects, he couldn't help but permeate the scenes with at times tormented images of his father's temperament, and the effect of his long-suffering pursuit of his artistic goals. In a letter to the current owner, Boyd discusses his emotive recollection of the present work: 'This particular picture... was my father lying down outside his kiln from which he had just unloaded the pots. Some of them were cracked and smoked and this is partly my fault (that they are smoked). This meant that when the kiln was fired and shut down after it had reach it required temperature (that is the fire boxes are closed down and there is no more fuel to be added to the fire boxes). As a child ( I was 8, 7, 9 ?) the kiln had been damped down - shut after reaching it's required temperature - and I as a child thought I would be helping – though I had a sneaky feeling I was doing the wrong thing! – but I wanted to see the smoke again when more coal would be added.. If the kiln has reached its temperature and has been closed down there would not be any more smoke – by adding more coal when the glaze was beginning to set, the smoke stuck to the glaze and when it cooled down the various colours and the clarity was smoked. When my father opened the kiln to find all his pots were smoked, that was when he lay down and had an attack (epileptic) which is the subject of this picture – to this day I feel great guilt. The lights in the back ground are the lights of suburban Murrambeena evening.'2 Alex Clark. 1. Grazia Gunn, Arthur Boyd: Seven Persistent Images, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1985, p. 66; 2. From a letter to the present owner in 1995
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Estimate:A$80,000 - 120,000
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Realised Price:
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Category:Art
This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.
