Sfumato on board, 30 x 27cm (image), 42 x 39cm (frame). Signed and dated lower right ‘David Boyd 1968’. Nicks, scuffs and scratches to surface, plus some wear to frame. Available for local pickup, otherwise courier to be arranged and paid for by bidder.
Sold with accompanying book “Sfumato: Paintings and Drawings of David Boyd” by James Burr and Sheldon Williams, First Edition (1967), published by Ritchie/Dickson Ltd., London, some damage to the book, but pages fully readable. [2]
Legendary Australian artist David Fielding Gough Boyd was born in Melbourne in 1924, a member of the distinguished Boyd family which for over three generations contributed to the Arts in Australia within various fields including painting, ceramics, sculpture, literature and architecture. Trained at the National Gallery School, David first exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society of Australia in 1945. Soon afterwards he turned his hand to pottery and ceramics in partnership with his wife, Hermia, working variously across Australia, England and France. He returned seriously to painting in 1957 with the series ‘Australian Explorers’, followed by a number of works focusing on the persecution of the Tasmanian Indigenous population. David was elected President of the Victorian branch of the Contemporary Art Society of Australia in 1960, later being awarded a scholarship from the Italian government and the Membro Albo Doro del Senato Accademico (Rome), among numerous other accolades. Commenting on the distinctive candle-carbon sfumato technique David embraced in the late 60s, critic Sheldon Williams comments ‘the flame of the guttering candle can express the individualism of the painter and faithfully fulfil his personal intentions … its spontaneous nature offers him a fluency not … experienced in other media’. Boyd’s artistic oeuvre explores a vast array of subject matter, and is held in many prestigious institutional collections throughout Australia, England and the United States.
