ARTHUR BOYD'S STUDIO
"BUNDANON", SHOALHAVEN RIVER, NSW, AUSTRALIA
Image Number 899
Dr Kenneth Mackenzie came from Scotland in 1838 and built a timber house above the Shoalhaven River south of Sydney. In 1866 the family moved into their new two-storey sandstone homestead ‘Bundanon’, in the tradition of the great “squatter houses” of Australia on 2,900 hectares along the river. Some generations later, following the drowning death of his grandson, Kenneth Mackenzie, in the river, the family departed the property in 1926. Bundanon was then leased to tenant farmers for the next 40 years.
The renowned Australian artist, Arthur Boyd and his wife, Yvonne, puchased Bundanon in 1979, having already acquired significant adjoining properties at immense cost.. Boyd, already the product of a dynasty of Australian artists, had the inherited wealth and establishment relationships to turn Bundanon into a national treasure,. He celebrated connections with all artists of his generation, the property’s legacy and its indigenous inhabitants. In 1993, Prime Minister Paul Keating announced the Australian Government’s acceptance of Boyd's offer to establish the Bundanon Trust as a gift to the nation.. In 1995 Arthur Boyd became Australian of the Year. In 1998 Bundanon’s artist in residence program was implemented in a building on the property designed by Boyd’s friend and legendary architect, Glen Murcott. Arthur Boyd died on 24 April 1999, aged 78.The house now houses 4000 works by Boyd, his family and his equally famous brother-in-law, Sydney Nolan.
Beyond the house Arthur Boyd’s purpose-built studio is maintained exactly as he left it, with his shoes, tools, paints, easels and works in progress. By all accounts, Boyd was a courtly patrican, who enjoyed the privacy of his remote and expansive refuge. He travelled frequently by sea back to England but never travelled by aircraft in his life. Atticus spent an emotional hour “alone with Arthur” in the studio trying to capture the magic.
TECHNICAL NOTES
The image was taken with a tripod-mounted Phase One 645 Camera at ISO 50. Exposure of 3/5ths of a second and an aperture of f16. Schneider Kreuznach 28mm wide angle lens with leaf shutter. The image was captured on a Phase One IQ180 80 megapixel digital back.