David Boyd (1924 – 2011) was an Australian artist, and a member of the Boyd artistic dynasty. Starting with Emma Minnie à Beckett and Arthur Merric Boyd the family is a generational body of painters and graphic artists. Boyd entered the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne at seventeen, but was conscripted to the army after one year. In 1946, he worked with his brother Guy at the Martin Boyd Pottery in Sydney. In 1956, Boyd and his wife became widely known as leading Australian potters. Boyd's painting career began in 1957 with a series of symbolic paintings on Australian explorers that aroused much controversy at the time, focusing as they did on the tragic history of the Aboriginal Tasmanians. Boyd discovered a technique in 1966 that he named Sfumato, after da Vinci's usage of the word to describe graduations of smoky tones in painting. Boyd's method achieved this effect through a new technique involving candle flame. Boyd and his family moved to Rome in 1961, and later moved to London. They also spent several years creating art in Spain and the south of France before returning permanently to Australia in 1975. David Boyd was artist-in-residence at the School of Law, Macquarie University, Sydney from 1993–1996. In 1960 David Boyd was Elected Councillor of the Museum of Modern Art Australia. Boyd has held many major exhibitions throughout Australia, England and France. His work has been included in numerous international exhibitions and is represented in major public art galleries, museums and university collections throughout the world.