Arthur Boyd's St. Francis Tapestries Unveiled in Full at National Gallery of Australia

Key facts

• All twenty tapestries by Arthur Boyd depicting the St. Francis legend are exhibited together for the first time at the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri Canberra, from 20 June to 18 October 2026.
• The tapestries were woven between 1972 and 1974 by the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre in Portugal, each about 2.5 by 3.5 metres.
• They were purchased for the national collection in 1975 by inaugural NGA director James Mollison and remained in storage for half a century.
• The exhibition, curated by Elspeth Pitt, also includes pastel drawings, colour transparencies, and black-and-white lithographs related to St. Francis.
• The tapestries are facsimile copies of Boyd's drawings, with 2,500 stitches per square metre, and were based on transparencies rather than the original drawings.
• Arthur Boyd died in 1999 without ever seeing the complete series exhibited; twelve were shown in Adelaide in 2023.
• Boyd belonged to Australia's most famous art dynasty; his grandparents, parents, uncle, and siblings were all artists or writers.
• Boyd first engaged with St. Francis at the family home in Murrumbeena, Melbourne; in 1965 he exhibited pastel drawings on the theme at Australian Galleries, Melbourne.