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Lot Essay
The second generation of Australia's great artistic dynasty that now extends to his great-grandchildren, Penleigh Boyd was born in 1890 to Arthur Merric Boyd and Emma Minnie Boyd. Both established artists in their own right, the young Penleigh was quick to follow in their footsteps, enrolling in the National Gallery Drawing School aged
just 15.
After four years, Penleigh left the School for England, where he exhibited at the Guildhall. Buoyed by the success of this showing, he repeated the practice the following year, and by the time he left England for Paris in 1911 he had developed a strong reputation, culminating in the inclusion of Springtime at the Royal Academy exhibition that year.
Boyd moved to Paris, taking a studio in the Boulevard Arago, next door to Emanuel Phillips Fox. In Paris he met Edith Anderson, a Brisbane-born art student who also modelled for Phillips Fox, and after their marriage the couple toured through France and Italy prior to returning to Australia in March, 1913.
The works painted during the artist's years in Europe were well-received by an Australian audience, and proceeds from a series of successful exhibitions enabled him in 1915 to build a permanent home in Warrandyte, on the Yarra River outside Melbourne. It was at Warrandyte that Wattle on the Yarra is thought to have been painted.
Penleigh Boyd enlisted for the Second World War and served in Europe, but was badly gassed at Ypres and returned home to Australia after a period of convalescence in 1918. Although Boyd had painted images of wattle before his period of active service, Wattle on the Yarra is thought to belong to the series of wattle images painted by the artist on his return to Australia. More than picturesque renderings of this attractive Australian plant, "with the wattle in bloom paintings Boyd was for all intents and purposes creating his own genre." (R. James, "Illuminating Penleigh", in Penleigh Boyd, Exh. Cat., MPRG, Victoria, 2000, p.11).
Despite his declaration to the contrary; "Don't think I was moved by what inspired this, or that it made me in the least feel emotional" (J. MacDonald, The Landscapes of Penleigh Boyd, Melbourne, 1920, unpaginated), Boyd's choice of subject seems to demonstrate that the artist revelled in the delight of the familiar, Australian landscape.
Wattle on the Yarra is unique as the only image in Boyd's wattle paintings to contain no hint of the rapid development of the Warrandyte area. Picnicking families, bridges and roads feature in other canvases, but here the Yarra River and the surrounding banks laden with wattle and grasses give no sign of time or specific details of place. The subdued tones of this image, in which treed verges and banks in blue, brown and green predominate, form a deep contrast to the brilliance of the two yellow bushes lit by sunshine. As in Spring Wattle, 1919 (Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Society), the artist's technical facility in rendering the fine detail of the wattle blossoms amongst a mass of yellow is apparent in Wattle on the Yarra, so that a contemporary critic would write "No man has painted the golden profusion quite so convincingly - No, not even Streeton" (J.Shirlow in G. Smith, "The Breath of Spring" in Penleigh Boyd, op.cit., p.19)
Just three years after painting this image, Penleigh Boyd was dead, killed in a car accident, but leaving an artistic legacy that would be carried on by his children, particularly Robin Boyd, notable architect of Menzies College, LaTrobe University and Churchill House in Canberra.
just 15.
After four years, Penleigh left the School for England, where he exhibited at the Guildhall. Buoyed by the success of this showing, he repeated the practice the following year, and by the time he left England for Paris in 1911 he had developed a strong reputation, culminating in the inclusion of Springtime at the Royal Academy exhibition that year.
Boyd moved to Paris, taking a studio in the Boulevard Arago, next door to Emanuel Phillips Fox. In Paris he met Edith Anderson, a Brisbane-born art student who also modelled for Phillips Fox, and after their marriage the couple toured through France and Italy prior to returning to Australia in March, 1913.
The works painted during the artist's years in Europe were well-received by an Australian audience, and proceeds from a series of successful exhibitions enabled him in 1915 to build a permanent home in Warrandyte, on the Yarra River outside Melbourne. It was at Warrandyte that Wattle on the Yarra is thought to have been painted.
Penleigh Boyd enlisted for the Second World War and served in Europe, but was badly gassed at Ypres and returned home to Australia after a period of convalescence in 1918. Although Boyd had painted images of wattle before his period of active service, Wattle on the Yarra is thought to belong to the series of wattle images painted by the artist on his return to Australia. More than picturesque renderings of this attractive Australian plant, "with the wattle in bloom paintings Boyd was for all intents and purposes creating his own genre." (R. James, "Illuminating Penleigh", in Penleigh Boyd, Exh. Cat., MPRG, Victoria, 2000, p.11).
Despite his declaration to the contrary; "Don't think I was moved by what inspired this, or that it made me in the least feel emotional" (J. MacDonald, The Landscapes of Penleigh Boyd, Melbourne, 1920, unpaginated), Boyd's choice of subject seems to demonstrate that the artist revelled in the delight of the familiar, Australian landscape.
Wattle on the Yarra is unique as the only image in Boyd's wattle paintings to contain no hint of the rapid development of the Warrandyte area. Picnicking families, bridges and roads feature in other canvases, but here the Yarra River and the surrounding banks laden with wattle and grasses give no sign of time or specific details of place. The subdued tones of this image, in which treed verges and banks in blue, brown and green predominate, form a deep contrast to the brilliance of the two yellow bushes lit by sunshine. As in Spring Wattle, 1919 (Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Society), the artist's technical facility in rendering the fine detail of the wattle blossoms amongst a mass of yellow is apparent in Wattle on the Yarra, so that a contemporary critic would write "No man has painted the golden profusion quite so convincingly - No, not even Streeton" (J.Shirlow in G. Smith, "The Breath of Spring" in Penleigh Boyd, op.cit., p.19)
Just three years after painting this image, Penleigh Boyd was dead, killed in a car accident, but leaving an artistic legacy that would be carried on by his children, particularly Robin Boyd, notable architect of Menzies College, LaTrobe University and Churchill House in Canberra.