Wieneke Archive Book 4d : Artists - Australian & Other Presscuttings

JAMIE BOYD Wednesday, February 15, 1967 Portrait by Jamie Boyd . . . "a touch Of the wildness of the Irish painter Yeats." A BOYD - HE'LL MATURE By ALAN WARREN AN 18 -year -old artist could easi- ly add lustre to a name already firmly embedded in Aus- tralian art history. Jamie Boyd who made his debut at the Aus- tralian Galleries yesterday, is the son of Arthur and great-grandson of Arthur Alerric Boyd. Despite weaknesses which are only to be expected at his age, the show will dis- pel any doubts about Jnmie Boyd's ability to grow into masterful maturity, He does not appear to be haunted by the -great- ness of the family name. I: Everything about these Interiors and landscapes suggests he is a roman- tic. uninterested In cur- rent fashion, with a lyrical type talent. Perhaps the recent Bon- nard show in London, where he now lives, made an impression. -The actual forms in his Interiors are certainly as loose and evasive as Bon- nard's. But it is obvious that he Works naturally and in- , atinctively in this way. What is more, he is a gifted colorist. Anyone wondering whe- ther the blood is running thin in a rather remark- able family, should not tutee ttin,:e lively Find tiPtI731- The Sun, Jamie Boyd's exhibi- tion (Australian) I comes as a pleasant surprise. His age (18) and the family name, in combination are enough to place pre- judices in the most sympathetic mind. P:imarily, it is the unpre- tentious nature of the exhibition wiiich dispels our doubts. These simple and unaffected landscapes have a freshness whose depend- ence on the Boydian ethos for their effect is slight to the point of non-existence. What Jamie Boyd has so obviously inherited is a de- light In the handling of paint. This is surely Just the right attitude for a young painter: to explore and de- light in his medium, letting what it all means take care of itself. Had we been presented' with a series of dark epiphanies, the work would have been suspect from the. start. Instead Jamie Boyd, ' has limited himself to a much smaller range of ex- perience: landscape, atmos- I phere and interiors. This limitation allows us a much better understanding K.\ Kt., LAIE-tst 60(B S t-tsiS r () .1"Tt t`i et a by ALAN McCULLOCH. ; The Herald TBaE Foungni GENERATION PAINTEEI IT isn't easy for the young member of a continuous family tradition of artists to make an individual reputation. But several generations of Boyds have succeeded in doing this and the lat- est, Jnmie Boyd. looks as though he too, might succeed. Jamie is the son of the most celebrated Boyd painter, Arthur, the son of Merric (potter), the son of Arthur Merric, a distinguished watercolor- ist. Jamie's large one-man show at the Australian Galleries shows that he has the good sense not to imitate his father's paint- ing, steeped as it is In Australian lore and at- mosphere, but instead to record the gentle bright- ness of the English land- scape (in which he has spent his formative years) in all Its dewy inti- macy. These are happy plc- of the embroynic artistic personality at work than a series of pontificating statements about love, death and the American novel would have. Of course there are lapses and failures. It would. be foolish not to expect them. In many cases they are the result. of an excess of energy and shortcomings in orgonication. One would be doing this painter a disservice in over- rating his debut: it Is accomplished juvenilia and not much more. The truly satisfying paintings are y"t to come. One hopes that he will be able to develop his evi- dent gifts at his own pace:, premature births have a bad record in art. tures, rather like Bon- nard landscapes done, however, with the urgent brushstrokes - and per- haps a hint of the wild- ness - of the Irish pain- ter Jack Yeats. Sensitive but decisive, the brushstrokes give life to the muted reds and diaphanous greens. An inherent Boydian charm pervades the en- tire exhibit and if this might seem to be a limit- ing factor it is also re- freshingly expressive of youthful reticence and modesty. "Couch under the Window" (13), "Girl at Piano" ( 28 "Summer Evening near Heath" (20) are among the best of the thirty-one pictures shown. Like many other mem- bers of his family, Jamie Boyd remains close to na- ture, and it, is perhaps this faculty more than' any other which enables him to establish his Ma.. viduailty. Patrick 131cCaughey THE AGE'