The Boyds

A Family Biography

Brenda Niall

The Boyd family is Australia's most remarkable artistic dynasty. This 'family biography' by award-winning writer Brenda Niall traces the emergence of an extraordinary artistic tradition.

Awards

Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction 2002
Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction 2002
Shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2003

Opinion

'With Niall as guide, the Boyds, past, present and future, could not have had a better biographer. This publication, handsomely produced with many illustrations, does them all proud.' (Michael Shmith, Australian Book Review, April 2002)

'One wonders how it's possible to write anything new about the Boyds, Australia's outstanding artistic family. Historian Brenda Niall . . . has done so, turning her scholarly gaze on the evolution of an extraordinary number of artists, potters, architects, writers and musicians.' (Mary Lou Jelbart, Good Reading, April 2002)

About this Title

The Boyd family is Australia's most remarkable artistic dynasty. Among the descendants of landscape painter Emma Minnie à Beckett and her husband Arthur Merric Boyd are talented painters, potters, sculptors, architects and writers, several of international standing.

This 'family biography' by award-winning writer Brenda Niall traces the emergence of an extraordinary artistic tradition. She places the Boyds in their historical and personal contexts, tells the interwoven stories of their brilliant careers, and analyses the shaping influences on their lives.

Most remarkable is the story, told here for the first time, of heiress Emma Mills--a convict's daughter who in 1855 married William à Beckett, son of Victoria's first Chief Justice. As the family's much-loved matriarch, Emma à Beckett promoted the artistic careers of her daughter Emma Minnie, son-in-law Arthur Merric Boyd and Boyd grandchildren.

Niall's narrative focuses on a sequence of Boyd family houses in Australia and Europe. Her story moves from a Wiltshire manor house to a farm in Yarra Glen and a pottery in Murrumbeena, to Arthur Boyd's Suffolk retreat and David Boyd's olive grove in the South of France, and finally to Bundanon, near Nowra-the homestead that Arthur Boyd gave to the Australian people. This strategy enables her to shift the spotlight from one individual to another, and to show dramatic changes in the family fortunes in many different settings.

Beautifully illustrated, The Boyds is based on family papers, letters and diaries and a wide range of interviews. Moving from 1840s Melbourne to the present day, it covers a vast territory while reading with the ease of a novel.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Family Tree

Part One: The Matriarch
1 Arrivals: Convict, Judge, Squatter, Solider
2 The à Becketts of The Grange
3 The Boyds of Glenfern
4 Penleigh House
5 Tralee and Wilton

Part Two: Inheritors
6 The Boyds at Yarra Glen
7 'This House belongs to Penleigh Boyd'
8 Merric Boyd's Open Country
9 Open Country: Post-War Pastoral
10 Martin Boyd: the Search for Home
11 The Return of Martin Boyd

Part Three: Artists' Houses
12 Robin Boyd: an Architect's House
13 Robin Boyd: 'Under a Tension Roof'
14 David Boyd: a House in Europe
15 Arthur Boyd: Every House a Studio
16 Guy Boyd: 'Grandpa Boyd's House'
17 The Road to Bundanon

Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

One of Australia's best-known writers, Brenda Niall is the author of four award-winning biographies. She has an AO (Order of Australia) for services to Australian literature, and an honorary D.Litt. from Monash as well as degrees from the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and Monash University. As Reader in English at Monash University, she gave courses in Australian literature, American literature, biography and autobiography. She has held visiting fellowships at the University of Michigan, Yale University and the Australian National University; and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She now writes full-time, and is a frequent reviewer for the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Book Review.