Arthur Merric Boyd

Arthur Merric Boyd (19 March 1862 – 30 July 1940) was an Australian painter. He and his wife Emma Minnie (née à Beckett) established a lifestyle of being artists, which many generations followed to create the popular image of the Boyd family.

Not to be confused with Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd (1920-1999)

Arthur Merric Boyd
Born(1862-03-19)19 March 1862
Opoho, Dunedin, New Zealand
Died30 July 1940(1940-07-30) (aged 78)
Murrumbeena, Victoria, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Known forLandscape painting
MovementBoyd family
SpouseEmma Minnie Boyd
Children
Parents
  • Captain John Theodore Thomas Boyd (father)
  • Lucy Charlotte (née Martin) (mother)
RelativesGrandsons:
Notes

Biography

Boyd was born in Opoho, Dunedin, New Zealand, son of Captain John Theodore Thomas Boyd, formerly of County Mayo, Ireland,[2] and his wife Lucy Charlotte, daughter of Dr Robert Martin of Heidelberg, Victoria. The Boyds moved to Australia in the mid-1870s, and on 14 January 1886, Boyd married Emma Minnie à Beckett, also an artist and known as Minnie, daughter of the Hon. W. A. C. à Beckett of Melbourne.[1] In 1890, they moved to England and lived for a time at Penleigh House, Westbury, Wiltshire, and in 1891 husband and wife each had a picture in the Royal Academy exhibition.[3]

Boyd then travelled and painted a good deal on the continent of Europe, and returned to Australia about the end of 1893, where he lived mostly in Sandringham and other suburbs of Melbourne for the rest of his life. He occasionally sent good work to the exhibitions of the Victorian Artists' Society, but never mixed much in the artistic life of his time.[3]

Minnie Boyd died at Melbourne on 13 September 1936 at Sandringham.[4] Arthur Merric Boyd died on the property of his son, Merric, at Murrumbeena on 30 July 1940. Each is represented by a picture in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.[3] They left three sons, Theodore Penleigh Boyd (1890–1923), Martin à Beckett Boyd (1893–1972), a popular writer of fiction firstly under the name 'Martin Mills' and then his own, and Merric (1888–1959), a potter, and a daughter Helen à Beckett Boyd, a painter.[3]

Selected paintings
  • Gathering Seaweed Before the Storm, Sandringham Beach
    Gathering Seaweed Before the Storm, Sandringham Beach
  • Winter Evening
    Winter Evening
  • North Wharf, Melbourne
    North Wharf, Melbourne
  • Fishing at the Jetty
    Fishing at the Jetty

References
  1. Tipping, Marjorie J. (1979). "Boyd, Arthur Merric (1862–1940)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 7. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 20 March 2014.
  2. "Residents of Upper Beaconsfield and surrounding areas". www.upperbeaconsfieldhistory.org.au. 1 September 2018. Archived from the original on 15 March 2019. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  3. Serle, Percival (1949). "Boyd, Arthur Merric". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
  4. "Family Notices". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). National Library of Australia. 14 September 1936. p. 1. Retrieved 3 April 2018.

Further reading
  • Niall, Brenda (2002). The Boyds. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84871-0.
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