Discovering Gold under the Apple Tree
Oil on Canvas
128x160cm
Signed Lower Left
Prov: Private Collection Victoria
$60,000-80,000
David Boyd’s paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s represent an important period in his artistic development, exploring themes of Australian colonial history, childhood memories, mythology, morality and the human condition. Through his celebrated Wanderer, Garden in the Wilderness and Exilesseries, Boyd developed a distinctive visual language in which historical narratives and personal experiences were transformed into complex allegorical compositions.
Born into one of Australia’s most distinguished artistic families, Boyd grew up at Murrumbeena, Victoria, surrounded by the creative influence of his parents, Merric and Doris Boyd, and his siblings, including his elder brother Arthur. Initially recognised as an innovative ceramicist, he turned increasingly towards painting during the late 1950s. In 1959, he became a founding member of the Antipodean Group, alongside Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh, advocating the importance of figurative painting in Australian art.
Boyd’s Wanderer Series, commenced in 1969, drew inspiration from the nineteenth-century adventurer Benjamin Boyd, examining colonial ambition, exploitation and moral responsibility. This was followed by Garden in the Wilderness, which incorporated memories of his childhood at Murrumbeena with biblical and mythological imagery, exploring the relationship between innocence and corruption. His subsequent Exiles Series, commenced in 1973, extended these concerns to themes of displacement, alienation and the search for belonging.
These interconnected series emerged during a period of considerable international recognition for Boyd. In 1969, he was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at London’s Commonwealth Institute, while his major narrative series were exhibited in Australia and Britain throughout the early 1970s. Combining expressive colour, symbolic figures and imaginative landscapes, these paintings demonstrate Boyd’s enduring interest in the moral complexities of human experience and remain central to an understanding of his artistic achievement.
