ARTHUR BOYD

Arthur Boyd: The Spirit of Australia, Savill Galleries, Sydney, 17 October - 16 November 1996, cat.10, illus.
Modern, Traditional, Contemporary, Gould Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney, 22 February-23 March 2003, cat. 24. illus

Introduced in the mid fifties in such masterly works as Shearers Playing for the Bride, 1957 (National Gallery of Victoria) and Persecuted Lovers, 1957-58 (Art Gallery of South Australia), Arthur Boyd's images of love and persecution in his Bride series still hold sway today, relevant and powerful as when they were first conceived. Their original impact was extended beyond the walls of the Australian Galleries by the hauntingly evocative film, The Black Man and His Bride, made by Tim Burstall and Patrick Ryan. Given their motivation and Boyd's concern for Aboriginal people, it is not surprising that he returned to the theme after taking up residency in London from 1959. London ushered in a time of unparalleled success: critical acclaim for his major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1962; ballet designs for Robert Helpmann's Elektra at Covent Garden and New York's Metropolitan; prominent representation in major touring exhibitions of Australian art; he commenced the Nebuchadnezzar paintings; and in 1967 Thames and Hudson published a monograph written by Franz Philipp .... the list goes impressively on. Bride with Bluebird belongs to this splendid period, with Boyd revisiting the Bride and related 'nude in landscape' themes, now influenced by the great masters he had seen on the walls of the world's best galleries. In Bride Drinking from Pool, 1960 (private collection, London), the landscape and imagery of white cockatoos and black crows are decidedly Australian. The landscape of Bride with Bluebird is not defined, the imagery now more universal and lyrical. The introduced bluebird takes on both an aesthetic and metaphorical significance. It enlivens the colour scheme with a poetic touch, and provides a 'dream symbol', as mentioned by Philipp in his book when referring to the related painting, Lovers with a Bluebird, 1962, at one time in the collection of Kym Bonython. The 'blue bird of happiness' is, of course, a universal image.

1. Philipp, F., Arthur Boyd, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967, p. 98