Boyd family

The Boyd family is an Australian family whose members over several generations contributed to the arts in the fields of painting, sculpture, pottery, ceramics, literature, architecture, poetry and music.

The Boyd family is considered an artistic dynasty.

The family is descended from four diverse immigrants to Victoria: These four families were joined by marriages of their children in the young colony of Victoria in the 1850s: It was in 1955 when David Boyd with his wife Hermia returned from a stay of several successful working years as potters in England and the south of France that the conception of this family line was popularised in a display of public relations in the press, magazines and the media (radio in 1955, television arrived 1956) that dismayed most family members.

David was working full-scale promoting the circumstances of his life for the benefit of the pottery exhibitions of his and his wife's work, and magazine editors found the thick patina of past grandeur as presented to them by David irresistible and pages of glory adorned the 1955 magazines and newspaper articles.

The generations that followed (including those born before 1955) grew up in this imposed social and cultural circumstance.