Arthur Boyd AC OBE was amongst Australia’s great twentieth-century painters. Although he is known for his landscapes and mythical subjects, and produced relatively few portraits, Boyd made a number of paintings of family and friends, all redolent of his interest in deep human truths. This intense and searching self-portrait was painted at a time when the artist was reading the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, and engaged on a series of works on the agony of war. Although he represented himself as apprehensive and isolated, Albert Tucker took a photo of Boyd with the recently completed work, surrounded by friends in his studio at his family’s home, which captures the sense of the shared creative environment in which this and other portraits of the 1940s were painted.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family 2014
© Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust bundanon.com.au
Accession number: 2014.47
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Arthur Boyd (age 25 in 1945)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves: who we read, who we watch, who we listen to, who we cheer for, who we aspire to be, and who we'll never forget. The Companion is available to buy online and in the Portrait Gallery Store.
Christopher Chapman looks at influences and insight in the formative years of Arthur Boyd.
Patrick McCaughey explores a striking Boyd self portrait.
Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.
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