Arthur Boyd: St Francis Tapestries

Have you seen Arthur Boyd's tapestries at the National Gallery of Australia ? They are extraordinary. 

Arthur Boyd (1920-1999) had an interest in the St Francis legend since the early 1950s but by the mid-1960s, this interest had grown into an obsession. By 1965, he created and exhibited a series of pastel drawings on the theme of St Francis at Australian Galleries in Melbourne, but there were very few sales.

Nevertheless, Boyd decided to commission tapestries based on large-format transparencies of his pastels. These were sent to Portugal's Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre where they created 20 huge tapestries between 1972 and 1974. They are each an astonishing 2.5 metres by almost 3.5 metres.

In 1975, James Mollison of the National Gallery of Australia acquired them for the national collection but they didn't see the light of day for some time. The gallery was set to open seven years later and Boyd's tapestries remained in storage for over 50 years.

The artist’s retelling of the life of one of the most venerated figures in human history, St Francis of Assisi, is vivid and modern. These are not traditional religious works. They are bold in colour and use energetic line work to depict various scenes. Each tapestry has between 4 and 8.5 million stitches, with the finished textiles are a testament to the collaborative process of artistic creation.

Arthur Boyd is one of several major artists written about in Greg Weight's book: Exposure A photographic memoir — so if you're looking for a new memoir to read, this is it. Take an intimate journey through Australia's bohemian art world: the friendships, the art, and the adventures of Greg and his cohort of fellow artists are profound, funny and interesting threads in this fascinating work.

The book of the exhibition is available from Piper Press's arts bookshop.

Arthur Boyd and Flame, 1993. Copyright Greg Weight.