Nora Heysen 25 October - 28 January 2001 Exhibition Gallery

One memory of childhood is always wanting to draw or paint. This is my earliest memory and will be my last, I think, that I must put something on paper or canvas or whatever within reach.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 25 August 1994. Oral History Collection.

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The Cedars 1911-1933
London 1934-1937
Sydney 1938-1942
The War 1943-1946
The Chalet 1947-present


The Cedars 1911-1933

I was one of a large family, eight children, and we all used to settle down in father’s studio and lie on our tummies and draw … how we must have annoyed him, I hate to think now, always asking for more paint or ‘Is this all right?’ or ‘Is that all right?’

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 8 November 1965 Oral History Collection

Still Life with Onions 1927
oil on canvas; 45.5 x 61 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

I remember painting eggs at one time because Lambert had painted one egg and everyone was trying to do eggs. I thought I’d paint a whole bowl of eggs, not just one egg but I’d do a whole lot of eggs.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 8 November 1965 Oral History Collection

Eggs 1927
oil on canvas; 36.6 x 52.5 cm
signed and dated lower right
Gift of Howard Hinton 1934
The Howard Hinton Collection
New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW

I like painting flowers direct—I like to gather a bunch in my hand in the garden, and put them in a container in a setting which enhances them, and paint direct, to get the whole feeling of the bunch in the round.

From an interview with Nora Heysen 8 November 1965 Oral History Collection

A Bunch of Flowers was painted when Heysen was seventeen as a gift for her mother.

A Bunch of Flowers 1930
oil on canvas; 38 x 46 cm
signed and dated lower left
Private collection

Nora had a strong sense of discipline instilled in her from early childhood. Her daily routine began with milking the cows before walking two kilometres to the train station for the hour-long trip to Adelaide. She then had to walk to the School of Fine Arts in North Adelaide where she studied. After working all day on her studies, she had to make the trip home in time to milk the cows.

I can remember in my childhood I used to milk cows before I went down to the art school each day and when I got home at night. My father was all in favour of this because he said, ‘If you’re going to be an artist you need to be healthy and physically fit,’ and how true he was.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 8 November 1965 Oral History Collection

Unknown photographer
Hahndorf
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/13)

Woggheeguy was published in 1930, a book of stories based on Aboriginal legends. The author, Catherine Stow, commissioned Heysen to do the twenty-three black and white illustrations for the stories. These illustrations were done in a silhouette form reminiscent of woodcuts. The animals in the images were drawn after hours of meticulous study at the Adelaide Zoo.

Illustration for Yaraandoo the Southern Cross from the book Woggheeguy: Australian Aboriginal Legends 1930
pencil, ink and wash drawing; 20.5 x 26.7 cm
signed lower left
Collection: National Library of Australia

Illustration for Borah the Kangaroo (Aborigines Dancing) from the book Woggheeguy:
Australian Aboriginal Legends
1930
pencil, ink and wash; 13.8 x 22.2 cm
signed lower left
Collection: National Library of Australia

Heysen exhibited Self Portrait in the Sydney Society of Arts show. It was bought by Howard Hinton and donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

At twenty-one, Heysen made a bold statement about her vocation. There are deliberate references to the Dutch Old Masters. She remembers moving Vermeer’s The Painter’s Studio c.1666 so that it formed part of the composition. She has balanced this work by including another less identifiable seventeenth-century work. The blue smock which she was to use for many years is draped over the back of her chair.

Self Portrait 1932
oil on canvas; 76.2 x 61.2 cm
signed and dated lower right
Gift of Howard Hinton 1932
Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales

Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953)
Nora Heysen Painting the Archibald Prize Winning Portrait of Madame Schuurman
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/4)

Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953)
Portrait of Nora Heysen Seated Next to Portrait of Madame Schuurman
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/1)

Summer Flowers 1933
oil on canvas; 76.1 x 61.2 cm
signed and dated lower right
The Hayward Bequest
Carrick Hill Trust
Adelaide South Australia

A Portrait Study (Self Portrait) 1933
oil on canvas; 86.5 x 66.7
signed and dated lower right
Purchased with the Assistance of The Art Foundation of Tasmania 1986
Collection: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

Heysen commenced work on a series of portraits of a young woman from the local village. Heysen named her Ruth for the portraits, in direct reference to the biblical character.

It seems appropriate that Mother should own that first painting of ‘Ruth’ as she was instrumental in my getting her as a model. When I look back upon those quiet days in the studio with Ronda [Ruth] patiently or serenely posing and with refreshments brought to us, the more I appreciate the atmosphere (for want of a better word) that made painting like that possible and realise that I have never since found a like set of circumstances.

Extract; Nora Heysen’s letter to her father, 2 December 1953
Sir Hans Heysen Papers MS 5073

A Portrait Study—Ruth 1933
oil on canvas; 67.5 x 56 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

Still Life 1933
oil on canvas; 51.1 x 60.7 cm
signed and dated lower right
Gift of Howard Hinton 1933
The Howard Hinton Collection
New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW

In the early 1930s, Nora moved into her own studio. It was converted from the old stables at The Cedars.

I think it was at 15 I went to the art school, and it was during that time that I used to work at home during the weekends, and I sold my first picture, and that enabled me to convert the old stables at home into a studio so I had a place of my own to work and I got out of father’s hair. I always used to paint in his studio before that.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

Unknown photographer
Nora Heysen Seated at Desk
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/7)

Unknown photographer
Nora Heysen c.1930s
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/12)


London 1934-1937

When I was about 20, I held my first exhibition, because naturally like all art students, I wanted to go abroad and study abroad.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 8 November 1965 Oral History Collection

Self Portrait 1934
oil on canvas; 43.1 x 36.3 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Unknown photographer
Christmas in London c.1936
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/10)

Unknown photographer
Study in London
gelatin silver photograph
Pictorial Collection (PIC 3692/11)

Interior 1935
oil on canvas; 33 x 30.5 cm
re-signed and incorrectly dated 1938
Collection: Meredith Stokes

Nora Heysen and Everton Stokes (later Shaw) rented Rempstone Farm in Dorset in 1935. From a Cottage Garden was painted during her stay. It shows a brighter palette and the more vigorous brushstrokes of the Post-Impressionists.

From a Cottage Garden 1935
oil on canvas; 44 x 37.5 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

The arrival of Everton Shaw in London in December 1934 made an enormous difference to Heysen’s world. Everton Shaw (Evie) had been her closest friend in Adelaide. Having a companion and close friend with whom to share discussions on art, visits to galleries and sketching trips to Kew lifted Heysen’s spirits and work rate. The joy and contentment of the two young artists is reflected in a letter home:

we get up at 7.30 and have breakfast by the fire then start work at 9 with only a short break for lunch at 2 o’clock till we stop when the light goes at about half past 5 then a little rest by the fire then dinner to buy and cook and eat and by then the day has gone and I feel too tired to think of anything but bed.

Extract; Hans Heysen papers MS 5073, Folder 146, 14 February 1935

Portrait of Evie 1935
conte crayon; 34 x 26 cm
signed lower right and dated lower left
Private collection

Portrait of Everton (Evie) 1936
oil on canvas laid on board; 40.6 x 30 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: Meredith Stokes


Sydney 1938-1942

I knew much more about the artists of Sydney and what was happening … I thought Sydney would suit me much better [than Melbourne]. There was much more life in Sydney.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 25 August 1994 Oral History Collection

I don’t feel things decoratively; I don’t feel that they’re flat. I feel that there’s light and air surrounding everything and that is how I like to portray it.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

Spring Light c.1938
oil on canvas; 51 x 41 cm
signed lower left and lower right
Private collection

Self Portrait 1938
oil on canvas laid on board; 40.5 x 30.5 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: Meredith Stokes

Corn Cobs, along with her works around the same time, show strong Post-Impressionist qualities. This influence could be in part attributed to her studies in Europe and her contact with many works by Post-Impressionist artists. Heysen had particularly admired Van Gogh’s work in Paris when she had seen it the previous year.

Heysen exhibited Corn Cobs in the first exhibition of the Australian Academy of Art in 1938. The Academy was designed to be a unifying, national body to support Australian artists.

Corn Cobs 1938
oil on canvas; 40.5 x 51.3 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales

I wasn’t a social bird ever. I was only interested in the contact, painting contact. No, I’ve never had an interest in the social life. But they say you should have if you want to paint portraits for that’s where your commissions are. But no, I had to be interested in the person I was painting and it was more likely they were attached to the art world for me to get that interest. So I painted Lionel Lindsay and Adrian Feint at that time and a few others because I had to support myself.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Adrian Feint 1940
oil on plywood; 88 x 66 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: National Library of Australia

From the Kitchen Window, The Cedars c.1940
oil on canvas; 54 x 65 cm
signed lower left
Private collection

Merrie at Six Months 1941
oil on board; 30 x 25 cm
signed lower right and upper right
Collection: Meredith Stokes

Motherhood had a very conscious reference to the Renaissance both in palette and composition. This was so blatant that Heysen came to refer to this and another work, Dedication as her ‘Murray Madonnas’.

Heysen won the Melrose Prize for portraiture for the second time with Motherhood in 1941.

With portraiture too, I like to draw direct from life—even if I am not actually looking at the sitter I like to feel the presence of the sitter, probably because it gives me confidence.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

Motherhood 1941
oil on canvas; 76.3 x 64.5 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

The Lovebirds 1942
oil on canvas; 43 x 35.5 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection


The War 1943-1946

You could only do one skim of paint. You couldn’t cope with a heavily painted canvass travelling around in jeeps. The conditions were tough and your paintings almost went mildew overnight up in that climate.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 25 August 1994 Oral History Collection

AAMWS (Private Gwynneth Patterson) 1944
oil on canvas; 56.2 x 41 cm
signed and dated lower left
Collection: Australian War Memorial

I was commissioned to depict the women’s war effort. There was that restriction on what I did. So I was lent around to all the services, the air force, the navy and the army, to depict the women working at everything they did during the war.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Sister Minnie Goldstein Working in the Blood Bank, Alexishafen 1944
oil on canvas; 45.6 x 40.6 cm
signed lower left
Collection: Australian War Memorial

Captain Robert Black 1944
pencil; 57.4 x 39.0
signed lower left
Collection: Australian War Memorial

Everyone told me about the colour in the tropics and there wasn’t any colour. It was drab, altogether drab. You might see a hibiscus flower every now and again. But where was the colour?

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Cypher Officer (Section Officer Jean Ewing) 1945
pastel with pencil; 55.2 x 33 cm
dated lower left
Collection: Australian War Memorial

If I was going to do war subjects I wanted to be as near as I possibly could.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Theatre Sister (Margaret Sullivan) 1945
oil on canvas; 91.8 x 66 cm
unsigned
Collection: Australian War Memorial

I believe flowers have always had a fascination for me, because I can remember when I was a war artist right up in the steaming jungle of New Guinea, I’d arranged myself a beautiful native bowl full of flowers and I was sitting down in the mess painting this when I had a signal to be moved down to Lae, and I ignored the signal, and the jeep came along to collect me to take me to the airport and I said, ‘Go away, I’m in the middle of painting flowers!’ and I continued with my flowers, and got into hot water over this. The signals flew from New Guinea to Melbourne and back, and I was still painting my flowers refusing to budge.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

When I waved them goodbye and said I couldn’t possibly go, all hell broke loose. I’d disobeyed orders. They were going to court-martial me and all the rest of it. Oh really, the fuss that was made out of all of that. Disobeying orders. You see, you weren’t allowed to do that. I was in the army.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

I recall that picture and sticking it out, and I remember painting it on the mess table and I had to move every time a meal was bought forward … it took me about four or five days to complete it, and I’ve kept the canvas. I called it The Flower Ship, and that’s one picture that didn’t go to the Military History Section. I felt I deserved that one!

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

The Flower Ship 1945
oil on canvas; 55 x 64 cm
signed and dated lower left
Private collection

I wanted to do something for the war effort and I offered my services for making sandwiches down at Rushcutters Bay for the navy. I did that for a while but they complained that I put too much butter and filling on the sandwiches and I was dismissed from that. Then I thought, ‘Well, what can I do to do something?’ It was in the wind then. Everyone was joining up and doing something for the war effort and all this and that. So I thought, ‘Well, why not go as a war artist and do some drawings?’

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Unknown photographer
Nora Heysen OWA in Army Uniform c.1944–1945
gelatin silver photograph
Australian War Memorial


The Chalet 1947-present

Now I think I’ve found my own environment …The house itself is about 120 years old, in a very wandering wilderness of a garden where I can grow my own flowers for painting, and the atmosphere is peaceful and very conducive to my work.

From an interview with Nora Heysen, 8 November 1965 Oral History Collection

I fell in love with the place when I saw it. I thought, ‘I could live here and I could paint here and it would be my setting’… That’s how it happened and I’ve never regretted it. I’ve made this my home and I never want to move and I feel happy here with my work.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Flowers in a Delft Vase c.1946
oil on plywood; 39.5 x 30 cm
signed lower right
Private collection

Self Portrait 1948
red chalk; 43 x 31.8 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: National Library of Australia

Robert Black was one of my subjects. He was a pathologist at that time. Well I got very interested in drawing him as a subject and gradually we fell in love.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Robert H. Black M D c.1950
oil on board; 78 x 59 cm
signed lower right
Gift of the artist 1999
Collection: National Portrait Gallery

Portrait of Hans Heysen 1952
conte crayon; 39.8 x 29.9 cm
signed and dated lower right
Collection: National Library of Australia

Boy Dreaming 1957
red chalk; 37.7 x 33.5 cm
signed lower left
National Trust of Australia (NSW)
S.H. Ervin Gallery
Gift of Nora Heysen 1988

I mustn’t forget cats, the whole place is full of white cats which look beautiful, and I’ve done several paintings of them.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

Morning Sun 1965
oil on canvas; 63.5 x 47 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

La Coiffure 1981
charcoal; 43 x 30 cm
signed and dated
Private collection

Flowers 1981
oil on canvas; 45.5 x 40 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

Siesta 1982
oil on canvas; 69 x 93 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

Freesias 1985
oil on canvas; 50 x 61 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

Apples on a Chair 1987
oil on canvas; 39 x 49 cm
signed and dated lower left
Private collection

This peaceful spot is not so remote that I’m not all too sure of what is going on in the art world, and the disturbing trends. It is very hard to find what is true to oneself. There are all these new trends, and it is a very exciting experimental age to be working in, but after all one’s own individual way of saying something is the important thing.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
8 November 1965
Oral History Collection

Peaches 1989
pastel; 50 x 65 cm
signed and dated lower left
Private collection

Light. Painting of light, and to get substance and light. I think the Impressionists sacrificed a lot of substance to light and their paintings got disintegrated. Then the Post-Impressionists brought back form, like Cézanne. It became rather too ephemeral.

From an interview with Nora Heysen,
25 August 1994
Oral History Collection

Quinces 1991
pastel; 44 x 56.5 cm
signed and dated lower right
Private collection

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