Priest with Angel Guard

Boyd's Church and State series followed his second trip to General Franco's Spain in 1964. The series was first exhibited at the Zwemmer Gallery in London in July 1965. The series, almost as large as his Trial series, was well received and widely reviewed. James Burr wrote in the July 1965 issue of Apollo: 'Australian painters have the rare capacity to turn literary ideas into creative visual images of great potency and deep mystery. ... His hieratic figures of cardinals and the ominous Guardia Civil loom out from gloomy backgrounds with malevolent Baconian undertones and occasional austere echoes of Chagall, although the mood has a distinct antipodean flavour that owes little to Europe. In these paintings Boyd tackles with courage and originality a theme which is particularly relevant, and he brings to it a frightening drama and a satirical penetration into the psychopathology of power.'