The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 48 No 3 November 2009

Perspective
During this period the Boyds also spent a year in France,
making pottery in the small village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup,
positioned midway between Cannes and Nice in Provence.
Returning to England, the Boyd's resumed potting, including
an exhibition at the Barling's gallery in Mayfair and a stint
designing work for the resurrected Chelsea Pottery, but,
following a particularly cold English winter, they felt the urge
to return to Australia. After rushing to fulfil a final order for
Heals department store - worth around £3000, a very large
sum of money for the time - the potters 'returned in triumph
to their homeland'10
The Boyd's successes abroad had been closely followed by
the Australian press and their homecoming was accompanied
by a blaze of publicity, or at least as much publicity as might
reasonably be accorded to a pa ir of potters. The first exhibition
held on their return, again at the Little Gallery at David
Jones department store, was favourably reviewed, with The
Hera/d's art critic, Alan McCulloch, reporting that the pottery
was 'quite exquisite in design, shape and finish, and in fact
much superior to anything of the kind that has so far been
shown here.'''
Over the next five years, David and Hermia Boyd
continued to have regular sell-out exhibitions in the major
cities, extending their formal language based on high-fired
earthenware, original forms and decorations based on a
Adam and Eve, 20cm. Terracotta.
Thrown and modelled and scraffito
decorated by David; in the collection at
the National Gallery of Vidoria, 1957
photo: The Pottery and Ceramics
of David and Hermia Boyd by John
Vader, page 138
marvellously fluent
Exhibition poster, France. 1952; photo:
The Pottery and Ceramics of David and
Hermia Boyd by John Vader, page 61
graphic sensibility and an extensive use of oxides (in particular
manganese and copper) applied over or inlaid into commercial
glazes.
At this point. in the mid to late 1950s, the stoneware pottery
movement was in its formative stage with Harold Hughan in
Melbourne and Ivan McMeekin and Peter Rushforth in New South
Wales. By contrast, David and Hermia Boyd had around fifteen
years of highly successful, innovative and lucrative ceramic practice
behind them in England, France and Australia, with a string of
sell-out shows meeting with critical acclaim, and involvement
in commercial enterprises that had sold thousands of pieces of
pottery. They were so far ahead of the game it's difficult to see
how, within another few years, they would be almost overlooked
by the burgeoning Australian ceramics movement. and yet that is
precisely what occurred.
Partly, this is because they decided to return to Europe in early
1962, following the awarding of an Italian government painting
prize to David, who was increasingly concentrating on sculpture
and painting as expressive mediums. At the end of this year the
Boyds returned to England, where they would remain for much of
the 1960s, and although they would continue to make ceramics
to supplement their other artistic interests, their contribution to
Australian ceramic life was effectively resigned to history.
THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS NOVEMBER 2009 27