1. William Merric Boyd, known more as Merric Boyd, was an Australian artist, active as a ceramicist, sculptor, and in extensive chronicling of his family and surroundings in pencil drawing.
12 Facts About Merric Boyd
1. 2.
Merric Boyd has been called the father of Australian studio pottery.
3.
The second of five children of Arthur Merric Boyd and Emma Minnie a Beckett, both established painters, Merric Boyd was born on 24 June 1888 in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, in Victoria.
4.
Merric Boyd lived in Sandringham where he was educated at Haileybury College until he was eight.
5.
The family moved permanently to the family farm at Yarra Glen and Merric Boyd attended Dookie Agricultural College with aspirations of turning his hand to farming; then he considered entering the Church of England as a clergyman, spending time studying at St John's Theological College, Melbourne; later supplying Martin Merric Boyd with material for his award-winning 1955 novel, A Difficult Young Man.
6.
In 1908 at Archibald McNair's Burnley Pottery, Merric Boyd threw his first pot.
7.
Merric Boyd set up a studio workshop on his home property at Murrumbeena and pottery kilns were established there in 1911 with the support of his family.
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Frederick McCubbin 8.
Merric Boyd studied under Lindsay Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery School, where he took up ceramics as a path to sculpture, but settled on pottery as his medium.
9.
Merric Boyd held his first exhibition of stoneware, fired in McNair Bros kiln, at the Centreway in Melbourne in 1912, and his second exhibition at Besant Lodge soon afterwards.
10.
Merric Boyd joined the Australian Flying Corps but was discharged later in England before returning to Australia in September 1919.
11.
Merric Boyd worked commercially and was able to provide for his family as he and Doris raised painters Arthur and David, and sculptor Guy and their two daughters Lucy and Mary.
12.
Subject to epilepsy, and somewhat of a recluse in his latter years with a strong interest in Christianity, Merric Boyd died at his home at Murrumbeena on 9 September 1959.