ARTHUR BOYD (1920-1999), ELONGATED FIGURAL FORM AND EMOTIVE FACE
ARTHUR BOYD (1920-1999), ELONGATED FIGURAL FORM AND EMOTIVE FACEEstimate $1,000 – $1,500
fibre-tipped pen on paper
signed 'Arthur Boyd' lower right
64 BY 50CM
Arthur Boyd's pictures are populated by a variety of strange, mythic figures and beasts, images he observed, remembered or imagined, or synthesized from the stories of western culture. Sometimes the significance of these figures is clear; in other cases all that can be deciphered is a mood or emotion. The present drawing is typically both potent and baffling. It appears to relate most closely to the Narcissus theme which the artist explored in paint in the mid-1970s, and in the 1980s through several print sequences produced in collaboration with the poet Peter Porter. The vulnerable nude Narcissus, his arms stretched out behind him, poised before a dive, is here caught in the gaze or the tears of a looming, threatening, moustachioed head, which has blood or saliva dripping from its hanging tongue.