The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 48 No 3 November 2009

Perspective
As a young man, William Merric Boyd (who is generally just known as Merric Boyd) studied art at the
National Gallery School in Melbourne. Legend has it that during a trip to a commercial pottery to buy
modelling clay for a sculpture class he was asked if he would like to try his hand at throwing a pot. It is
recorded that he threw a perfect pot at his first attempt, an event that has undoubtedly been subject to
exaggeration over the years, but nonetheless points to an early affinity for the medium of clay.2 Merric
Boyd decided to become an 'art potter', working from a studio on a block of land the family purchased
for him at Murrumbeena, a suburb then on the semi-rural outskirts of Melbourne. In 1912 Merric Boyd
became a part of ceramic history by holding the first one-person exhibition of pottery in Australia at
Centreway, a gallery in Collins Street in Melbourne. In 1915 he married Doris Gough, a fellow student
from the National Gallery School, and she went on to work closely with Merric Boyd, decorating many
of his ceramics over the subsequent years. By the time Merric Boyd left Australia in 1917 to fight in the
First World War he was already a well-known ceramic artist.
Following his discharge from the army in England in 1918, he spent a year studying at the
Wedgwood factory in Stoke-on-Trent, financed by a Commonwealth Rehabilitation Grant. On his return
to Australia he resumed work at Murrumbeena where his ceramics met with considerable success. In
keeping with the times he worked in earthenware, throwing pots which were then heavily modelled and
decorated - often by Doris Boyd - in a faux-na'ive style replete with references to Australian plants and
animals. Although he was sometimes able to sell work for considerable sums, his financial position was
always somewhat precarious (no surprises there), leaving the Boyds and their growing family living in 'an
indefinable, vaguely Boehemian style of artistic poverty. '3
All of Merric and Doris Boyd 's children - Lucy, Arthur, Guy, David and Mary - learned the elements of
pottery at an early age, helping out in the family business. Following the end of the Second World War
the pottery entered a new phase, with the young Arthur (Merric Bloomfield) Boyd, in partnership with
his colleague and friend John Perceva l', establishing a new workshop next to the now disused Open
Country pottery, which they named after Arthur's grandfather, calling it the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery.
Together with the Viennese emigre Peter Herbst S , they manufactured goods for the Ministry of Labour
and National Service, as well as making individual art pieces.
During the 1940s, the Boyds' encampment at Murrumbeena became a haven not only for the family
but also their friends, 'becoming more and more a loose colony of artists and intellectuals - one of
the very few enclaves ... to offer protection to radical modernists.'6 A similar group of artists gathered
around John and Sunday Reed at Heide, a farmhouse located in the outlying Melbourne suburb of
Heidelberg. There was some interaction between the two groups, with the artists Sidney Nolan, Albert
Tucker and Joy Hester 7 , all names closely associated with Heide, visiting the Boyds at Murrumbeena. In
addition, many figures who would go on to be well-known figures in Australian ceramics worked at or
at least had contact with the Boyd workshops, including Carl Cooper, Tom Sanders and Hatton Beck.
David Boyd, who was a talented pianist, initially studied music at the Melbourne Conservatorium. In
1945, following his military service, he transferred his Commonwealth Retraining Grant to the National
Gallery School where, following in his parents and grandparents footsteps, he embarked on a career
in the visual arts. Studying drawing under the famous but rather conservative artist and teacher Sir
William Dargie, Boyd soon rebelled. He moved to Sydney where one of his brothers, Guy, had already
re-Iocated in order to study sculpture at the National Art School with Lyndon Dadswell. During 1946
the two brothers became involved in a pottery enterprise, with David making a final move to Sydney in
1947. The colourful, popular ware they made was sold under the name of Martin Boyd Pottery, again
following a confusing family tradition of naming workshops after members of the family who actually
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