Merric BOYD

Australian 1888–1959

Although Merric Boyd was not a first-generation member of the Boyd artistic dynasty, he is regarded as its patriarch. Son of artists Arthur (Sen.) and E. M. Boyd, he married artist Doris Gough in 1915 and went on to father Lucy, Arthur, Guy, David and Mary, all of whom played important roles in the Australian art world. Merric went jackarooing as a youth and seemed destined for a life on the land. In 1910, however, he decided to attend the National Gallery School in Melbourne and, two years later, held his first exhibition. It was of pots rather than paintings and today is acknowledged as the first solo exhibition of studio pottery in Australia.

Merric Boyd largely supported his family by his craft and made most of his pots at home, at Open Country, his property at Murrumbeena. The pottery was a rustic affair and there are stories of him emerging from the studio covered in clay and absent-mindedly running his fingers through his clay-spattered hair. And when the pots were fired he packed them in suitcases and drove them to the city in a horse and trap. Later, he and Doris caught the train up to Melbourne and hawked their suitcases of pots round the city.

Merric’s pots always show evidence of their origins upon the wheel, of the potter’s miraculous raising of a vessel out of a lump of malleable clay. The double-walled Vase of 1931 is carved and modelled as well as being thrown. It is a tour de force and shows Merric in tune with the rhythms of both nature and his medium.

Terence Lane