Lysistrata calls the Women

Arthur Boyd was one of the foremost Australian artists and was born into a highly artistic family in Victoria, 1920. Boyd’s own talents were first nurtured at school and by 1937 he had already held a first solo exhibition and designed and built a studio. In 1941 Boyd was conscripted into the army, although WWII did not hamper his artistic progress; he drew and painted prolifically and met influential fellow artists such as John Perceval and Sidney Nolan.

In the late 1940s and ‘50s Boyd travelled to Alice Springs, inspired by the outback and their indigenous peoples. Though he spent the 1960s in Europe, when he and his family returned in 1971 Boyd was regarded as one of Australia’s most valued artists. In 1984, he was commissioned to design a tapestry for the Parliament House in Canberra. A committed philanthropist as well as artist, Boyd gifted his $20 million family home of Bundanon to the Australian people before his death in Melbourne, 1999.