Bundanon

Jo is a writer and printmaker. She is interested to make known the lives and work of Australian women artists and explore how they navigated decisions about career, marriage and children in the context of social changes over the twentieth century. 

Jo has written published biographies of artists Jessie Traill (2020) and Adelaide Perry (2022) as well as written and illustrated four published children’s books. She received a Creative Fellowship from State Library of Victoria for her research into the life of Jessie Traill and was shortlisted for the Hazel Rowley Fellowship to write about Adelaide Perry. 

Jo has spoken at the National Gallery of Australia, State Libraries of NSW and Victoria, Women’s Writer Societies of NSW and Victoria as well as community groups and schools about her research and writing. She was Children’s Book Week in Residence at Bundanon in 2013. 

In Residence at Bundanon

During this residency, Jo plans to begin to research the life of Yvonne Boyd by accessing primary documents and artworks in the Bundanon Collection. She plans to consider Yvonne’s art work and decisions about family and career in both their historical and familial context. 

Much has been written about the Boyd men as part of the Boyd dynasty of artists. The women in the Boyd family have received less consideration and scholarship. Artists Emma Minnie Boyd and Doris Boyd preceded Yvonne, her artist sisters in law were contemporaries and her artist daughters, nieces and granddaughters have come after her. In different ways and historical contexts these women have been able to maintain their art practice.  

Yvonne was a promising post-war artist and has been described as, ‘a woman of sharp intelligence who shared her husband’s sense of social and political conscience’. She has been remembered as the caring, elegant woman who supported Arthur’s career and managed the business and domestic in their lives. Yvonne also taught art, wrote and hosted the many people who visited their homes. 

Jo looks forward to finding out more about this talented and generous woman and bring to light more about the complexities of Yvonne’s experience and choices as a mid twentieth century woman who became part of the Boyd dynasty.