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This activity relates to Level 5, National Profiles, SOSE. 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 artist, 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 four of Nora Heysens images of war and four by Wendy Sharpe. Compare these works, paying particular attention to subject, content, mood, date , location and anything else you think may be relevant. Consider the following question: Do these two women have a similar perspective on the war effort? What do you think influenced their interpretations?
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