Nora Heysen   The Cedars 1911-1933  
  London 1934-1937
 
 
Biography   The Chalet 1947-present  
The War 1943-1946  
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  Sydney 1938-1942
   
1911 Born 11 January in Hahndorf, South Australia; the fourth of Hans and Selma Heysen’s eight children.
1912 Family move to The Cedars.
1926 Studied at the School of Fine Arts, North Adelaide (1926–1930), under F. Millward Grey.

1930–1933

Studied two days a week at the School of Fine Arts while during the remaining time she painted in her studio, a converted shed, at The Cedars.
1930 Exhibited at the Society of Artists, Sydney. Works acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Illustrated Catherine Stow’s Woggheeguy: Australian Aboriginal Legends, published by F.W. Preece and Sons, Adelaide, for which she made many studies at the Adelaide Zoo. Won the Still Life Prize, Society of Arts Autumn Exhibition.
1931 Visited Sydney with her mother and father; spent two weeks studying at the Julian Ashton School. Work acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery.
1933 First solo exhibition at the Royal South Australian Society of Arts Galleries, Adelaide; showed twelve portraits, thirty still lifes and twenty drawings. Awarded Melrose Prize for Portraiture with Ruth.
1934 Went to London with family; travelled to England and the Continent. Remained in London when family returned home. Enrolled at the Central School where she studied (1934–1936) under Bernard Meninsky, James Grant, Alfred Turner and John Skeaping. Moved into studio flat in Duke Street, Kensington.
1935 Met Orovida Pissarro who visited her studio and later took her to meet her father Lucien Pissarro. Influenced by Pissarro’s advice she changed her palette. In June she paid her first visit to Paris with her friend Everton Stokes, a sculptor, who came to join her from Adelaide. She was thrilled by the Louvre, the Luxembourg and by a great exhibition of Italian Renaissance art. Stayed at Rempstone Farm, Dorset, with Evie, from June to the end of October, she painting and Evie carving.
1936 Second trip to Paris. At the end of the year enrolled at the Byam Shaw School and studied under Ernest Jackson for six months.

1937

Went on extended trip to Italy with Evie. Travelled to Rome by train and then by car to Orvieto, Assisi, Perugia, Siena, Florence, San Gimignano, Padua and Venice; then to Milan by train and from there to London (30 June – 18 July). In Paris saw a Van Gogh exhibition including paintings, drawings and letters. Embarked on a ship for home and arrived in Adelaide in October. Painted some works in her old studio, but soon decided to go and live in Sydney.
1938 Settled in Sydney early in the year. Made a member of the Society of Artists in September. Entered two portraits in the Archibald Prize, which she won, with the portrait of Madame Elink Schuurman.
1941 Painted portrait of Lionel Lindsay, commissioned by Sir James McGregor, who presented it to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
1943–1946 Appointed official war artist in October 1943. Served in New Guinea, Lae, Finchhafen, Morotai and Borneo. Discharged on 7 February 1946. In New Guinea met Dr Robert Black whom she was later to marry.
1947 Travelled to England. Lived in Liverpool and London partly to be near Dr Black who was involved in specialist study of tropical diseases in which he was to become an authority and later Head of Tropical Medicine at University of Sydney. While in England met up with Ursula and Bill Hayward, Jeffrey Smart and Jacqueline Hick with whom she visited exhibitions and galleries.
1948 Returned to Sydney where she lived in a flat in College Street, next to Hyde Park.
1952 Exhibition at Heysen Gallery, Hahndorf.
1953 In January married Robert Black; ‘a wish of ten years standing is finally fulfilled’, she wrote to her father. Exhibition at the Moreton Galleries, Brisbane.
1954 Purchased, with her husband, ‘The Chalet’, a prefabricated house of Baltic pine exhibited at the Paris Exhibition, imported to Sydney and erected, c.1850, at Hunters Hill. Joined Frank Bennett’s life classes at Hunters Hill where she drew the nude every Friday night.
1954–1965 With her husband travelled frequently to tropical regions including New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. There she enjoyed drawing and painting the local people, which figured prominently in her oeuvre of that time. A drawing of a ‘native’ was purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1956 from the Society of Artists Exhibition. Her husband, her cats, holidays and the large garden kept her from being very active as a painter. In November 1965 interviewed by Hazel de Berg for the National Library’s oral history department.
1957 Exhibition at John Martin’s Gallery, Adelaide.
1962 John Hetherington published a profile of her in the Age with the title ‘I Don’t Know if I Exist in My Own Right’. Death of her mother.
1963 Exhibited with her father at Hamilton Art Gallery; solo exhibition in Millicent, South Australia.

1967

Exhibition at North Adelaide Galleries.
1968 Travelled to USA, London, Spain and Italy. Death of her father.
1970 Group exhibition at Prouds Gallery with Lloyd Rees, Roland Wakelin, Douglas Dundas, Adrian Feint and Arthur Murch. An article in the Australian called the group ‘artists who still paint in the old-fashioned way’.
1972 Travelled to USA, Mexico, England and Switzerland. Separated from her husband; retained the Hunters Hill house. Began working with pastels.
1974 Travelled to New Zealand.
1984 Retrospective exhibition at Old Clarendon Gallery, South Australia.
1986 Exhibition at von Bertouch Galleries, Newcastle.
1987 Exhibited in second Annual Survey, David Jones’ Art Gallery, Sydney.

1989

Retrospective exhibition, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, and publication of a monograph on her work by Lou Klepac, published by The Beagle Press. The retrospective was also shown at Carrick Hill, Adelaide.

1993

Received the Australia Council’s Award for Achievement in the Arts.

1998

Awarded Order of Australia (AM).