Penleigh Boyd

Private collection, Melbourne; acquired by the parents of the present owners

Very good original condition. Contemporary frame (with some plaster losses top centre and top right). Canvas folded back (reduced) on stretcher - probably original. Several small vertical cracks in impasto tree centre left and associated fragmentary paint loss. Pressure deformation (blister) upper/centre right.
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Yarra Valley landscape presents a characteristic Penleigh Boyd view of the Australian scene in its cooler climes. Victoria was his painting ground, although he did work in Canberra in 1913 and Hobart the following year, entering his Canberra scene in the painting competition for an unsullied view of the Federal Capital site. He won second prize and, with another work simply titled Landscape, was awarded the 1914 Wynne Prize. In 1918, after his return from World War I, the major focus of his attention was the Victorian bush. The sparkling gold of wattles along the Yarra, as in Spring Fantasy (1919, Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum), also attracted his attention. His painting Wattle Blossoms, hung in the 1923 Royal Academy exhibition, was much admired. Ghost Gums at Kangaroo Flat, (1921, private collection) and Morning Light (1922) illustrate his interest in the poetic effects of nature as revealed in the gentler times of day - its beginning and the lyrical moments of dusk. He delighted in the fall of light on the noble gum, these poetic moments of nature painted en plein-air, first inspired by the teaching and example of his drawing master at the National Gallery School, Frederick McCubbin.

In the early twenties Boyd extended his interests to include Melbourne bayside scenes along the Mornington Peninsula, such as Winter Calm, (1920, Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum) and Portsea, (1921, Benalla Art Gallery). Boyd showed an inclination towards the lower viewpoint for the landscape peopled by the thus elevated, stately eucalypt, and a high one, as in this painting, when seeking the more panoramic effect. His love of colour is apparent in all his work, especially of greens and blues as found here. This he combined with a technique employed to create surfaces smooth, approaching the immaculate. An artist contemporary, James MacDonald observed: 'In oil he works directly, usually painting 'premier coup' and disturbing his colour as little as possible. Once his first impasto is dry he uses thin colour to finish. To get fineness of texture, such as a smooth and subtly graded sky demands, his practice is to scrape the first painting flush with his canvas in such a way as to level up all textile inequalities and prepare a smooth surface of solid paint on which closer gradations may be realised.' ¹

1. James MacDonald, The Landscapes of Penleigh Boyd, Melbourne: Alexander McCubbin, 1920, n.p.