The National Gallery of Australia’s latest exhibition, Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, has been more than 50 years in the making.

Born in 1920 to an acclaimed family of notable painters, potters, and architects (including his cousin, Robin Boyd), Arthur Boyd is best known for his expressive paintings of the Australian landscape, interwoven with Biblical allegories.

Across his extensive career, Boyd experimented with printmaking, drawing, painting, and ceramics. But one of his most monumental creations, comprising a series of 20 tapestries, is finally being showcased in full for the very first time at Kamberri/Canberra’s National Gallery.

At 2.5 by 3.4 metres, each tapestry depicts a scene in the artist’s retelling of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi that he commissioned from the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, a skilled textile workshop in Portugal.

‘Boyd had hoped to show the works soon after their completion in 1974, but this never occurred due to an arts body failing to confirm funding in time for the planned exhibition,’ says the National Gallery Senior Curator of Australian Art, Elspeth Pitt.

‘Since then, there have been various efforts to show the complete series, but it’s taken some fifty years to make it happen.’

In addition to Boyd’s unruly interpretations of one of the most venerated figures in human history, perhaps the most astonishing part of these tapestries is their immense scale and complexity.

Every aspect of the work was done by hand, woven at a scale more than 20 times larger than Boyd’s original source images, and each containing between 4 and 8.5 million stitches.

‘Teams of weavers then worked in six-to-eight-hour shifts, often for 24 hours a day, to complete the work to schedule,’ Elspeth says.

‘A team of expert weavers could expect to produce between two and three centimetres of tapestry over the course of a shift. All the weavers were women, many of whom spent their working lives at the Manufactura.’

These artisans are recognised in the exhibition, finding as many names as possible from archival records held by the Manufactura.

Visitors will also be able to view Boyd’s lithographs, pastels, and drawings, exploring the technical processes involved in the creation of these tapestries. There’ll even be a series of weaving workshops and talks designed to provide deeper insights into the artist’s fascination with the patron saint of Italy, and the recurring themes of divinity and humanity in his works.

While the series, known as the Life of St Francis tapestries, has been largely undiscovered by wide audiences until now, this milestone exhibition is proudly putting it in the spotlight.

‘It is a strange and very beautiful experience to be surrounded by these enormous works that required so many hands to make them and so much time and care to come into being,’ Elspeth adds.

Visit Arthur Boyd: Tapestries for free at the National Gallery from June 20 – October 18 2026.