Narcissus Series Etching
Arthur Boyd
The Work
This etching is part of Boyd’s Narcissus series (1983–1984). The series explores the Greek myth of Narcissus, set against the backdrop of the Shoalhaven River and Boyd’s property at Bundanon, NSW.
The suite came out of Boyd’s long collaboration with the poet Peter Porter, made alongside Porter’s Narcissus, published in London in 1984 — the two of them working the same myth in parallel, in pictures and in words. Boyd does what he does best in it: takes a European story he had known all his life and puts it down in the Australian bush, so the pool Narcissus leans over is the Shoalhaven. The plates are etched and aquatinted, and the aquatint is what carries the mood — dense, smoky tonal fields with the figure drawn into them rather than sitting on top. It is late Boyd, and it is unmistakably his.
- Year
- 1983–1984
- Medium
- Original etching and aquatint on paper
- Edition
- 2 of 30, signed in pencil
- Image size
- 400 mm x 500 mm
- Framed size
- 910 mm x 1,035 mm
- Catalogue
- 0002
Provenance
I found this etching on Facebook along with two other works by Arthur Boyd. My brother drove down to Sydney to collect them for me. Among those three, this one stood out — I kept it for myself because of how it spoke to me.
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