The Heide Circle was a loose grouping of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n artists who lived and worked at "Heide", a former dairy farm on the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, ( Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower s ...

floodplain at

Bulleen Bulleen ( ) is an eastern suburb in Melbourne, Australia, 13 km north-east of the Melbourne central business district, located within the City of Manningham local government area. Bulleen recorded a population of 11,219 at the 2021 census ...

, a suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, counting amongst their number many of Australia's best-known

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

painters.

History

Heide was purchased in 1934 by

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

and

Sunday Reed Sunday Reed (born Lelda Sunday Baillieu) (15 October 190515 December 1981) was an Australian patron of the arts. Along with her husband, Reed established what is now the Heide Museum of Modern Art. Personal life Reed was born on 15 October 1905 ...

, passionate supporters and collectors of Australian art and culture. Amongst other activities, John Reed published the modernist literary magazine ''

Angry Penguins ''Angry Penguins'' was an art and literary journal founded in 1940 by surrealist poet Max Harris, at the age of 18. Originally based in Adelaide, the journal moved to Melbourne in 1942 once Harris joined the Heide Circle, a group of avant-garde ...

'', which earned its place in Australia's cultural history with the notorious

Ern Malley The Ern Malley hoax, also called the Ern Malley affair, is Australia's most famous literary hoax. Its name derives from Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley, a fictitious poet whose biography and body of work were created in one day in 1943 by conservat ...

hoax in 1943. John Reed was a Tasmanian-born solicitor, graduate of Cambridge University in 1924. whose association with art and design begun in Melbourne in the mid 1920s, when he shared a home with illustrator and furniture designer Fred Ward. Around him were a circle of highly innovative and creative young and wealthy Melburnians including his sister

Cynthia Reed Nolan Violet Cynthia Reed Nolan (1908–1976) was an Australian writer and gallerist who promoted modern art and design in Australia during the early to mid 1930s. She was a key member of the Heide Circle around Sunday and John Reed. Later she was ba ...

, psychiatrist

Reg Ellery Reginald Spencer Ellery (1897–1955), was a pioneer in the practice of psychiatry in Melbourne, Australia. He was also noted as an autobiographer, memoirist, communist, and poet. Under J. K. Adey's supervision at Sunbury, Victoria, Sunbury, El ...

, musicians Mansell Kirby and Bernard Heinze, curator

Clarice Zander Alleyne Clarice Zander (9 February 1893 – 12 October 1958), known professionally as Clarice Zander, was an Australian art curator and gallery manager, born Alleyne Clarice Peel in Coleraine, Victoria. She became known for organizing the ''Britis ...

, artist

Will Dyson William Henry Dyson (3 September 1880 – 21 January 1938) was an Australian illustrator and political cartoonist. In 1931 he was regarded as "one of the world's foremost black and white artists", and in 1980, "Australia's greatest cartoonist" ...

and literary patrons

Nettie Palmer Janet Gertrude "Nettie" Palmer (née Higgins) (18 August 1885 – 19 October 1964) was an Australian poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic of her day. She corresponded with women writers and collated the Centenary Gift Book which ...

and

Vance Palmer Edward Vivian "Vance" Palmer (28 August 1885 – 15 July 1959) was an Australian novelist, dramatist, essayist and critic. Early life Vance Palmer was born in Bundaberg, Queensland, on 28 August 1885 and attended the Ipswich Grammar School. With ...

, establishing a pattern that would extend into the years at Heide. A number of modernist artists came to live and work at various times through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at Heide, and as such it became the place where many of the most famous works of the period were painted. Albert Tucker,

Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...

Danila Vassilieff Danila Vassilieff (22 March 1958) was a Russian-born Australian painter and sculptor. He has been called the "father of Australian modernism". Life Danila Ivanovich Vassilieff (Данила Иванович Васильев) was born in 1897 ...

, Gray Smith and

Joy Hester Joy St Clair Hester (21 August 1920 – 4 December 1960) was an Australian artist. She was a member of the Angry Penguins movement and the Heide Circle who played an integral role in the development of Australian Modernism. Hester is best known ...

, amongst others, all worked at Heide. Nolan painted his famous series of

Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout wi ...

works in the living room there. The Heide Circle is well known for the intertwined personal and professional lives of the people involved. Sunday Reed conducted affairs with a number of them, with the knowledge of her husband. Sydney Nolan's second wife

was John Reed's younger sister. The marriage of former Heide associates caused a permanent break between Nolan and Sunday Reed. David Rainey's 2014 play ''The Ménage at Soria Moria'' is a fictitious performance piece exploring the relationship between the Reeds and Sidney Nolan – both the heady days at Heide during the 1940s, and the less well known degeneration over the next 35 years. The Heide Circle continued in their commitment to Figurative Modernism through the 1950s and 1960s, with several of the artists forming the

Antipodeans Group The Antipodeans (from the Greek: ἀντίποδες meaning literally “those at the antipodes”) were a group of Australian modern artists who asserted the importance of figurative art, and protested against abstract expressionism. Thoug ...

and taking a stand against the new abstract art. Heide is located very close to

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

, the area associated with a famous earlier Melbourne art movement, the

Heidelberg School The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. It has latterly been described as Australian impressionism. Melbourne art critic Sidney Dickinson coined the term in an 1891 review of works by Arthur Streeton and ...

. The north-eastern fringes of Melbourne, particularly further out at

Eltham Eltham ( ) is a district of southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three wards of Elt ...

, retain a close association with the visual arts. The

Heide Museum of Modern Art The Heide Museum of Modern Art, also known as Heide, is an art museum in Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1981, the museum houses modern and contemporary art across three distinct exhibition buildings and is s ...

is now an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

featuring most of the artists of the period, and actively supporting the development and promotion of contemporary art in Australia.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Heide Museum of Modern Art website

Australian painters

History

See also

References

External links