Arthur Boyd AC OBE (b. 1920 )
1995 Award

Boyd's early work concentrates on impressionistic landscape and religious themes. Following the war he produced a series of paintings about war-induced suffering, introducing his recurring concern with the outcast. After a trip to Central Australia his distress at the plight of Aboriginal people and his consciousness of the guilt of racism resulted in his series 'Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste'. The 'Nebuchadnezzar' series was his response to the Vietnam War. In the 1980s he explored the landscape, seen as either hostile wilderness or Eden, and national identity. His vision is anguished and lyrical, owing much to the Old Testament stories his mother read to him as a child. He rejects the abstract, claiming that the artist's role was to make a contribution to a social progression or enlightenment'.

In 1993 he gave his property Bundanoon, near Nowra, to the nation as a working centre for the arts and a place for families to enjoy. In accepting his award he argued urgently for an Australian Republic.