Art Gallery of SA - Arthur Boyd Collection

Arthur Boyd is considered one of the great Australian painters of the 20th Century. And as you browse through the collection of his work currently on show at the Art Gallery in North Terrace, you can't help but see how his view of Australia and the world changed dramatically. Boyd was born in 1920 into a highly creative and supportive family. His father was the potter Merrick Boyd, and Arthur learnt much from his about pottery, sculpture and ceramics.

It was also an artform from which he and his friends could earn some money and allow Boyd to pursue his real passion, painting. And in his early years his canvases reflected the light hearted optimism of youth.

"Arthur was very influenced by impressionism at the time and this work was done with pallet knives just putting the paint on just to capture the impression of light. And he did a lot of work at this time of the landscape around the area and particularly beach scenes".

"It's quite beautiful isn't it, and quite peaceful"

"Uhm, this is lovely work"

"And remarkably it changes in just a short space of time into this which is kind of a bit ugly"

"Yes, they are a bit ugly, a lot of them are. But they're very expressive and emotive. These were produced during the second world war".

Gone are the dreamy seaside retreats, replaced by twisted images of characters, half man and half beast. The horror of war was to change his artistic vision, and would also have a profound impact on the way in which he saw the Australian landscape at the time.

"If you remember, this is all happening at the end of the war. Arthur may have known at that stage about the holocaust. The paintings Arthur produced at this time have changed the way Australians looked at their landscape and represented their landscape definitely, very hellish images, people descending into hell and damnation and I think you can see that sort of feeling here, it's..."

"It's desperate, isn't it"

"It's really desperate"

All of the pieces on show have come from the Art Gallery, the University of Adelaide or private collectors from around the State, reflecting South Australia's close connection with the work of Arthur Boyd. In fact, this, the Nebuchadnezzar series was first exhibited at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War. It's inspiration comes the Old Testament story of a Babylonian King whose worldly possessions blinded him to the absolute power of God. Cast out into the wilderness, Nebuchadnezzar becomes an allegory for the collapse of humanity which Boyd saw in the Vietnam conflict.

"This again is from the Nebuchadnezzar series, and it's a wonderful work owned by the art gallery which is Nebuchadnezzar dreaming of gold. So it's really showing him in the bush reclining abandoned but dreaming of the glory he did have, dreaming of money so I suppose you can say for this work he's not going to be forgiven yet, he hasn't got the message across yet he needs to learn to think of other things other than money"

The fall from grace is a common theme in Boyd's work, including his ceramics, like the fall of Icarus the man who sought to fly with the gods only to come crashing down to earth. And when you look long enough, you can see where a few contemporary Mambo designers have gleaned their inspiration.

Adelaide's Boyds is on at the Art Gallery of South Australia until June 25th. Entry is five dollars for adults, three dollars concession, and two dollars for children.

For more information phone 08 8207 7000 or email Kate at Jordan-Moore.Kate@saugov.sa.gov.au