Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd: Art and Life, (2000) Thames and Hudson, London started as a PhD at the University of St Andrews, supervised by Martin Kemp and Bernard Smith, Australia. Research on Arthur Boyd drew on existing publications to newspaper reviews at Bundanon, NSW, at the National Gallery of Australia and manuscripts in the Franz Phillip papers at the University of Melbourne and the Australian Galleries, Melbourne In all, 30 hours of interviews with the artist at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Bundanon, NSW. Three weeks spent with the Boyds in Tuscany, and meetings in Suffolk and London. Six hours of interview with poet Peter Porter in London with whom Boyd collaborated, over a period of fifteen years (1973-1988) to produce four major works: Jonah (1973), The Lady and the Unicorn (1975), Narcissus (1984) and Mars (1988).
Interviews too, with publisher, critic and Freudian scholar Tom Rosenthal, subsequently the author of a major study of Sidney Nolan; and Peter Read, Sydney, author of The Rape of the Soul Most Profound: The Stolen Generations.
Academy Editions, London published: Arthur Boyd at Bundanon (1993)
Thames and Hudson published a reduced version of the doctorate soon after Boyd’s death: Arthur Boyd: Art and Life, with Foreword by Martin Kemp (2000).
The research was made possible by the generous support of Dr Jutta and Wolfgang Fischer Fine Art, London.
