Arthur Boyd, Bundanon, New South Wales

Arthur Boyd AC (1920-1999), was one of Australia's best-loved painters, producing thousands of works, principally landscapes and mythological scenes, before his death at the age of 78. Boyd had little formal training as an artist, but learned much from his artistic family and friends. Through the 1930s and 1940s he scraped a living making pots, tiles and other ceramics. His first major work was a mural commissioned by his uncle, writer Martin Boyd, in 1948; his first wide recognition came a subsequent series of landscapes of the Berwick and Wimmera regions. In 1959 he moved his family to London, and triumphed there at his first exhibition in 1960 with his 'Bride' series. He returned to Australia in 1971 after exhibiting frequently in England and Europe. During a two-year artist-in-residency position at ANU he painted his friend, 'Professor Manning Clark at Wapengo' (1972), one of the gentlest and finest of his many searching portraits. In the following years he bought land on the Shoalhaven, which he presented to the nation in 1993. It now houses the artists' retreat Bundanon.