Exhibition themes Potter series

The Potter Drawings

Boyd’s daring drawings in The potter series came to the fore after a visit that he made to Australia in 1968; his first return since he left Melbourne in 1959. The experience brought back memories of his formative years and he also discovered many of his father’s drawings which he found inspirational.

Back in his London studio, Boyd allowed conscious and subconscious images to merge in bold, expressive brush drawings relating to love, fear, sex and death. A recurring motif was the cane chair that his father, Merric, sat in while working on his ceramics. In these drawings the chair often morphs into a seemingly animate being.

In Coffin with flowers and potter’s wheel with landscape decoration, the hybrid chair, wheel and coffin unite around the circular decoration, like a window onto the past. Here Arthur pays homage to his father’s art by including one of his favourite motifs: alternating patterns of dark and light in tall tree trunks.

In some drawings personal and political images overlap, including references to the fire that destroyed his father’s pottery kiln, and memories of the Second World War. Like the German expressionists before him, Boyd tried to work these dark, haunting images out of his consciousness in his art.

Reflecting on outsider figures in wartime Melbourne, a trumpet player from those early days resurfaced in memory but now there is greater amplitude and confidence in drawing as the trumpeter fills the breadth of the paper.