The Painter as Potter

During the late 1940s and 1950s, a circle of young painters associated with the Murrumbeena home of the Boyd family produced a large body of decorated earthenware vessel and a smaller group of ceramic sculptures which collectively represent one of the most extraordinary chapters in the development of Australian ceramics. Just as the European tradition of studio pottery has been greatly enhanced by the contribution made by painters like Gauguin, Picasso, Miro and Chagall, so has the brief but spirited history of Australian ceramics been profoundly enriched by a momentary and daring excursion into the ceramic medium by the painters Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, Neil Douglas and their colleagues at the ‘Arthur Merric Boyd’ Pottery in Murrumbeena.

Extract from The Painter as Potter: Decorated Ceramics of the Murrumbeena Circle, Geoffrey Edwards, 1982