Arthur Boyd Quotes about Art

Arthur Boyd is a famous Australian painter, printmaker and potter. He is best known for his paintings of the Australian landscape, especially his depictions of Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River. Famous Arthur Boyd works include “Reflected Bride 1”, “Three Shearers Playing for a Bride”, “Lovers in a Boat”, “Chained Figure and Bent Tree”, “Melbourne Burning”, “River Bank and Four Rocks”, and “Nebuchadnezzar on Fire Falling over a Waterfall”.

Mini biography: Born Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd on the 24th of July, 1920 in Murrumbeena, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. His mother was Doris Lucy Eleanor Bloomfield Gough and his father William Merric Boyd was a ceramicist and sculptor. Boyd married Yvonne Lennie in 1945 and they had three children: Jamie, Polly, and Lucy Boyd. The artist died on the 24th of April, 1999 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at the age of 78. He was buried in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield South in the Brighton General Cemetery, Victoria, Australia.

List of Famous Arthur Boyd Art Quotes

I stress the uniqueness of the Australian landscape and its metaphysical and mythic content. Arthur Boyd

Everything I do is the environment. Arthur Boyd

No matter what sort of protest there is and what sort of things happen one year, the next year it is all on again. Arthur Boyd

I’d like to feel that through my work there is a possibility of making a contribution to a social progression or enlightenment. It would be nice if the creative effort or impulse was connected with a conscious contribution to society, a sort of duty of service. Arthur Boyd

Art doesn’t alter things. It points things out, but it doesn’t alter them. It can’t, no matter what a painter wants to do. Arthur Boyd

When I go out to paint a landscape I’m less concerned with what it’s about but more concerned with how it looks. Not putting any connotation. Paint it as it is, not as you would want it to be. Arthur Boyd

We had a rough time in the Depression, but so did everyone else. Arthur Boyd

The scale of everything was so different: the scale of the Shoalhaven was enormous compared to the softness and gentleness of Port Phillip Bay especially around the Rosebud area, and also the harshness of the light… not so much the harshness but the clarity. At times it was intense the shadows became almost black. Arthur Boyd

I don’t like nationalism. It’s a bad concept somehow. It involves flags – don’t like flags. Never liked flags. Arthur Boyd

I think the most Australian element are pictures from 1941. They are primeval and full of people being pushed down the flooded rivers and creeks. I thought they had the most Australian flavor of anything I’d done. But very little notice was taken of them. Arthur Boyd

Arthur Boyd Self Portrait Painting

More on Australian Artist Arthur Boyd

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Related or similar artists and celebrities include: Sidney Nolan, Brett Whiteley and Elisabeth Cummings.