“This is just perfect” said
Arthur Boyd,
“I think we had better make a habit of it.”
He
is gazing out at the hills of Kangaroo Valley, shrouded in yesterday’s rain and
mist. Beside him stand his son,
Jamie and his grandson,
Alexander.
All
three are surrounded from floor to ceiling by paintings, some stacked against
the walls, other hanging from them; the shelves and stairwell rails are covered
in small sculptures and the garden outside is dotted in large bronzes.
All
bear the mark of
Boyd.
Whether the faces gazing out the window, or the art lining the gallery walls, or
the landscape outside, there is no mistaking it.
This
is
Boyd territory.
Where
better, then, to exhibit for the first time six
Boyd’s all together under one roof?
Tomorrow, an exhibition of some 80 paintings and 40 bronze sculptures from
members of distinguished
family opens at the Galeria Aniela in
Kangaroo Valley, not far from the Boyd Shoalhaven home Bundanon, which
Arthur Boyd
and his wife Yvonne donated to the nation in 1993.
The
exhibition will include works of
Arthur, his brothers
David and
Guy, his son
Jamie, his niece
Lenore (daughter of
Guy) and his niece
Tessa Perceval
(daughter of his sister Mary and artist
John Perceval).
Among
the oils are six from
Arthur Boyd
Magic Flute Series and a new work,
Bride and Serpent,
painted 1995, in which the artists revisits the imaginary of his
famous Bride series.
Thirty
four paintings are from
David Boyd
and there are seven bronzes by
Guy Boyd. One – a bust of
Arthur cast by
Guy just before he died in 1988 - is
being exhibited publicly
for the first time.
Jamie Boyd,
who had an exhibition at the gallery last year, has flown out especially from
London in time for the opening, as has his son Alexander, a musician, who is
also here for a series of concerts in Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne; while
Lenore will travel from Melbourne and
David
from Sydney to join their clan.
The
typical Boyd imaginary floats up from canvases while
the Boyd voices float in the air around
the gallery.
“It
is quite strange” says
Alexander. “I have never seen so many
collected together in one place. They are different in style, but what is
interesting is you can see the family resemblance.”
“It
is a bit revelation for me,” says
Jamie. “I have seen them in each other
houses. But this is different. You tend to look with more critical eye. You see
a lot of similarities, and then recognise family traits and think, oh, I see, so
that’s where that comes from.”
“Oh, it’s just marvelous” says
Arthur. “There is unity here. There is a
spirit running through all the stuff that is peculiar to
the family that is what it is.” The
patriarch peers out at the hills one more. “I think we should do this again.”
