Arthur Boyd was born in Murrumbeena, Victoria on 24 July 1920, son of the potter, sculptor and painter, Merric Boyd. He attended night classes at the National Gallery Art School, and after the war he established the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery Workshop at Murrumbeena with John Perceval and Peter Herbst.  The war deeply affected Boyd and from this period of seeming devastation he produced some of his best work in the form of disturbing psychological images that expressed his horror at and suffering during the war years.  His heavy palette-knife technique was ahead of its time and certainly unique to Arthur Boyd’ s paintings.  It was this technique that set him above other artists.  In the early 30’s this technique was used to produce many fine land and seascape paintings.

Boyd went on to become one of Australia's best-known artists and to inspire fellow painters.  His early works drew on his war-time experiences and his travels through central Australia and Aboriginal communities. His art was inspired by the Australian landscape and the Bible as well as being drawn from personal experience.  His works reflect family relationships, values and religious beliefs, and symbolise human passions such as love and aggression.  He embarked on paintings of the Wimmera and Berwick regions and these landscapes won him enormous critical and public recognition. 

By 1959, he found favour with London critics and moved to England before commencing his well-known Nebuchadnezzar series.  He produced his famous Half-Caste Bride Series based on the style of Chagall.  In the 1970s, he rediscovered the Australian landscape and later bought the property Bundanon, on the Shoalhaven River in southern New South Wales.   In 1993, the Boyd family donated the beloved property to the Australian people for use as an artists' retreat and gallery. 

Apart from his paintings, Boyd produced lithographs and etchings as well as illustrating books.  Arthur Boyd is represented in all state galleries throughout Australia, as well as many university, regional and public gallery collections. His work is held in many private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas.

Half-caste child