The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 48 No 3 November 2009

Perspective
Another reason David and Hermia Boyd's contribution to Australian ceramics was overlooked was
simply because they had worked exclusively in earthenware, when the orthodoxy of Leach-inspired
Anglo Oriental ceramics was at its zenith. Colourful, earthenware ceramics, no matter how well done,
were deemed to be old-fashioned, crass even, by the exponents of Antipodean Sung, who somehow
overlooked Leach's own enthusiasm for English slip-wares, which of course were also earthenware. For
their part, David and Hermia Boyd held similar prejudices, having seen and dismissed much of British
studio ceramics in the 1950s as being rather amateurish essays in a 'recently evolved tradition'12,
with Hermia remarking on the preponderance of 'Japanese squiggles or the Leach-introduced Eastern
hieraglyphic [sic[ for ripening corn'.13
Therefore, when the journal Pottery in Australia was first published in May 1962, with editor Wanda
Garnsey taking pains to 'acknowledge the stimulus of Bernard Leach's personality .. . following his visit
to Sydney'14, it's hardly surprising that the recent, spectacular contribution of two generations of Boyds
would be ignored, as indeed it was for many years to come. It is therefore entirely fitting that this article
appears in the successor publication to Pottery in Australia and I can only hope that the contribution
of the Boyds, and in particular that of David and Hermia Boyd, is re-assessed and appreciated by a new
generation of Australian ceramic artists.
Damon Moon
Willunga 2009
Emma Minnie Boyd nee a'Beckett, daughter of the first Chief Justice of Victoria,
Sir William a'Beckett.
2 Vader, J, p.1S
3 Niall, B, The Boyds: a family biography, Melbourne University Press, 2002
4 Both Arthur Boyd and John Perceval went on to become very well-known and respected painters.
5 Herbst went on to become Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University and a
founder of the Humanities Research Centre.
6 Cochrane p. 70
7 Sir Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester all become well-known painters. Sidney Nolan was
also married to Mary Boyd.
S Vader, J p.27
9 The Boyds' licence to trade was issued by the Crafts Council of Great Britain against the wishes
of its Director, the potter Heber Mathews. For a revealing glimpse into post-war British craft
politics, see Vader, J, pp. 37-39
10 ibid p. 107
11 ibid p. 113,114
12 ibid p. 36
13 ibid p. 37
14 Garnsey, Wanda, Editorial, Pottery in Australia, Vol. 1 No.1, 1962
THE JOURNAL Of AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS NOVEMBER 2009 29