Meadow Bank – Baringhup (1950’s) – SOLD

Sometimes big things really do come in small packages! Every now and then some small but beautiful paintings come into my gallery that despite their size, are important cultural objects and rare pieces that hold an important place in Australian art history,

This lovely oil by one of Australia’s most important artists, the late Arthur Boyd AC OBE (1920-1999) is one such painting. It’s very special to have this delightful oil from the 1950’s on offer now in the Studio.

Raised in a highly artistic environment with grandparents, parents and siblings that were all artists, Arthur Boyd excelled at art and his early years were engrossed in creative endeavours at art school and in his father’s William Merric Boyd’s (1888-1959) pottery at Murrumbeena. His first attempts at landscape painting were encouraged by seaside visits to Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsular where he painted alongside his beloved grandfather, the landscape artist Arthur Merric Boyd Snr (1862-1940).

The Murrumbeena pottery was an important cradle of creativity for Arthur and his siblings and his friend, the artist John Perceval. During Boyd’s formative years his closest friends included John Perceval and other notable artists Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester.

Later, from the mid 1940’s Boyd turned to painting and established himself as one of Australia’s leading artists, going on to achieve great success as a painter. During the 1950’s he spent time travelling and painting north west of Melbourne through the small towns and farming communities in and around the Wimmera district. The location of this charming oil is the countryside in Baringhup, a farming community en-route to the Wimmera, about 150 kilometres from Melbourne.

Boyd’s paintings from this period are amongst his most collectable and important landscape works. They have come to be appreciated as timeless, almost archetypal expressions of the Australian landscape.

Boyd’s works inspired by the Wimmera and the surrounding regions are elegantly tonal with bleached, organic colours that reflect the brightness of the light and the sparseness of the landscape. We see this in “Meadowbank – Baringup” where Boyd has captured the clear golden light cast over the yellow grasses and burnt stubble and conveyed iconic Australian rural imagery with crows circling over the farmland and around the windmill.

Of particular note is the framing on “Meadowbank – Baringup” which is a valuable and exquisite quality, custom-made frame that features glowing water-gilded gold, the most expensive and prestigious framing technique – a befitting and elegant presentation for this collectable Australian treasure.

The size of “Meadowbank – Baringup” provides a rare opportunity for a collector to acquire a relatively affordable original oil by Arthur Boyd, at a fraction of the value of his larger early oils from his highly collectable & harder to come by 1950’s period.