Bio
William Merric Boyd (Merric Boyd) was born in St Kilda 1888, Merric became interested in sculpture through a sculptor who knew his family, Web Gilbert. He made his first pot in 1908 and was first associated with commercial pottery production at the Archibald McNair’s Burnley Pottery studio in Melbourne, While there buying clay for his handmade pots he saw a pot being thrown on a wheel in there studio. Merric started working with the potters at the studio and quickly learnt the basic skills of throwing. He refined his skills while working at the Australian Porcelain Insulator works in Yarraville between 1912 and 1914. He was also studying at the Melbourne National Gallery School under L. Bernard Hall and McCubbin,
In Melbourne 1912 Merric Boyd held his first exhibitions with a second exhibition soon afterwards, By 1915 he married Doris Lucy Eleanor Bloomfield Gough. By 1913 Merric with the help of His Parents (Arthur Merric Boyd and Emma Minnie à Beckett Boyd) set up his first studio in a house on the family farm in Murrumbeena called “Open Country” with pottery kilns installed. In May 1917 he joined the Australian Flying Corps before being discharged later in England and giving returned solders pottery classes for the Army Education Rehabilitation Scheme in London. Before his return to Australia in September 1919 he undertook training in pottery technique at Wedgwood’s, Stoke-on-Trent.
After Returning to Australia Merric exhibited works with the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria and the NSW Society of Arts and Crafts.
Merric had three sons Arthur (Born 1920), Guy (Born 1923), David (Born 1924) and a daughter Mary (Born 1926), In 1926 the main pottery studio at the Open Country estate was destroyed by a fire.
Merric Boyd is mostly well known for his innovations in pottery during the 20s and 30s, producing some of his most highly acclaimed ceramics with most modern art critics calling him the farther of Australian ceramics. His wife Doris also helped with the decoration of the works produced in the studio. In 1929 Merric was commissioned to make a vase for the visiting ballerina, Anna Pavlova which he made in a neoclassical style, quoting Wedgewood.
The Great Depression left the studio in hard times, as with most businesses at the time, Merric spent some months teaching pottery at the New England Girls’ Grammar School in Armidale, NSW. but by 1934 he started a joint venture with John Crowe of the Australian Porcelain Company, making ‘Cruffel Art Porcelain’.
Merric Boyd sold his son in-law Hatton Beck (Husband to his daughter Lucy Boyd) equipment from his Open Country studio which Hatton established into a dedicated pottery studio out of a butcher shop in Murrumbeena in 1939 called The Altamira Pottery studio.
As Merric’s health declined his son Arthur and son-in-law John Perceval took over the day to day operation of the studio at the estate and fired Merric’s pots, Pottery was also being produced at the Altamira Studio after Hatton Beck sold the studio to Arthur Boyd , John Perceval and Peter Herbst in 1944. Merric Boyd’s departure from commercial pottery led to his son Arthur and John Percival renaming the Altamira studio to AMB pottery, becoming one of the most prolific studios in Melbourne with artists Yvonne Boyd, Mary Boyd, Tim and Betty Burstall, Carl Cooper, Tom Sanders, John Howley, Albert Tucker, Jean Langley, John Yule and Charles Blackman with works by major Australian artists Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, Neil Douglas, Yvonne Boyd.
Merric Boyd passed away in Murrumbeena on the 19th of September 1959 being a well respected member of the Murrumbeena community and the Australian art scene with his contribution to ceramic arts in Australia being well recognized.
