Nora Heysen   The Cedars 1911-1933  
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Education Material: Year 9-10 Art   The Chalet 1947-present  
The War 1943-1946  
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Women as War Artists

This activity relates to Level 5, National Profiles, The Arts.

Nora Heysen was the first female Official War Artist. Prior to her appointment, the documentation of war through film, photography and painting, was a purely male domain. Women were considered ill-equipped for the rigours of life at the front. The emergence of women as a vital cog in the war machine changed this bias. By the Second World War, women were nurses, cooks, drivers, munition and factory workers, and an integral part of the war effort.

Heysen was the first of three women to be appointed as Official War Artists during the Second World War. The other two were Sybill Craig and Stella Bowen. Their appointment was primarily to record the activities of women in the war effort and other subjects seen to be ‘appropriate’. Most of these images are now housed in the Australian War Memorial collections to educate future generations about the realities of war.

This tradition continues. Even with the advances in technology today, artists are still sent to record a more personal version of events. Today, women are involved in almost every aspect of military service. In the recent East Timor conflict, one of the OWAs sent to record the conflict was Wendy Sharpe.

Practical work

Allow students to look at the Australian War Memorial website.

http://www.awm.gov.au/database/

This will allow them to search the art and photography databases that contain work by Nora Heysen, her contemporaries Stella Bowen and Sybill Craig, and modern views by Wendy Sharpe.

Chose two of Nora Heysen’s images of war and two by Wendy Sharpe.

Compare and contrast these works.

Consider the following question:

Do these two women have a similar perspective on the war effort? What do you think could have influenced their views?

Level 5, National Profiles, The Arts

This suggested activity relates to Level 5 of the National Profiles, The Arts.

A student

  • Uses starting points such as observation, personal experience and research to express ideas and feelings
  • Makes visual art works by organising the elements and using appropriate processes, skills, and techniques
  • Analyses the works of artists by referring to and describing specific features, effects and techniques and using descriptive language and terminology to support this analysis
  • Discusses and understands the characteristics of visual art works made within a particular culture and in a particular historical period, and uses this knowledge in art activities