Nora Heysen (11 January 1911 – 30 December 2003) was an Australian artist, the first woman to win the prestigious

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor ...

in 1938 for portraiture and the first Australian woman appointed as an official war artist.

Early years

Heysen was born in

Hahndorf, South Australia Hahndorf is a small town in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. Currently an important tourism spot, it has previously been a centre for farming and services. Geography It is accessible from Adelaide, the South Australian capital, ...

as the fourth child of landscape painter (later Sir) Hans Heysen and his wife Selma Heysen (née Bartels), and was raised at ''The Cedars'' in Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. She studied art from 1926 to 1930 at the School of Fine Arts in Adelaide under F. Millward Grey and sold paintings to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1930. From 1930 to 1933, she continued to study two days a week at the School, and worked in her own studio the rest of the time. In 1931 she visited Sydney with her parents, and spent two weeks studying at the

Julian Ashton Art School The Julian Ashton Art School was established by Julian Ashton in 1890 as the "Academy Julian", (perhaps a reference to the Académie Julian in Paris) has been an influential art school in Australia. For a long time it was known as the Sydney Art ...

Early career

Heysen's first solo exhibition was held in Sydney in 1933. In 1934 she traveled to London with her family, remaining in Europe, after they returned home, until 1937 studying and painting. When she returned to Australia she returned briefly to Adelaide and then moved to Sydney.

Archibald Prize

In 1938, she entered two portraits in the

. Her portrait of Madame Elink Schuurman was awarded the prize and she became the first woman to win the Archibald. There was a controversy involving criticism of her win by painter

Max Meldrum Duncan Max Meldrum (3 December 1875 – 6 June 1955) was a Scottish-born Australian artist and art teacher, best known as the founder of Australian tonalism, a representational painting style that became popular in Melbourne during the interwa ...

War artist

On October 12, 1943, she became the first woman to be appointed as an Australian war artist at the rank of captain. "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". During her service Heysen completed over 170 works of art and was discharged from service in 1946 in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

Family life

Following her discharge from war service Heysen went to London and later returned to Sydney in 1948. While in New Guinea, she met Dr. Robert Black, whom she married in 1953. She continued to paint, exhibit and travel with her husband. Her marriage ended in 1972. Heysen's works are currently being held in the collections of the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

, the Australian War Memorial, the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

, the National Portrait Gallery and several state galleries.

Reception

A 1939 article in ''

The Australian Women's Weekly ''The Australian Women's Weekly'', sometimes known as simply ''The Weekly'', is an Australian monthly women's magazine published by Mercury Capital in Sydney. For many years it was the number one magazine in Australia before being outsold by ...

'' ran with the headline "Girl Painter Who Won Art Prize is also Good Cook" and lists three of Heysen's favourite recipes along with her strategies for achieving domestic duties and leaving time for painting. A major retrospective exhibition of the work of daughter and father, ''Hans and Nora Heysen: Two Generations of Australian Art'' was curated by the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

March - July 2019. Reviewing it, Sydney Morning Herald critic John McDonald described Nora's career as a "fractured, stop-start affair",John McDonald, ''The Parent Trap; Illuminating the art and relationship of Hans and Nora Heysen'', Sydney Morning Herald March 30–31, 2019, Spectrum p.10 but that in a "popular rethinking of the Heysen's place in local art history ... Nora's star has risen while her father's has declined". McDonald nominated as Nora's signature work her "breathtaking still life, ''Eggs'' (1927)" from the Hinton collection in the New England Regional Art Museum,John McDonald, ''The Parent Trap; Illuminating the art and relationship of Hans and Nora Heysen'', Sydney Morning Herald March 30–31, 2019, Spectrum p.11 and described her ''Still Life'' of quinces (1933) from the same collection as "painted with the precision of an old master".

Awards

In 1993 she was awarded the

Australia Council The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austr ...

's Award for Achievement in the Arts and on 26 January 1998 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her service to art. *1933: Melrose Prize for Portraiture *1938:

for her portrait of Adine Michele Elink Schuurman *1993:

Award for Achievement in the Arts *1998: Order of Australia (AM)

Notes

References

Australian Art: Artist: Heysen, Nora
Accessed: 2007-11-21
Australian War Memorial. Fifty Australians: Nora HeysonNational Library of Australia. 2001. Nora Heysen ExhibitionWilliamson, Kate Art Interview: Nora Heysen (1911-2003)
Accessed: 2007-11-21

External links

''Madame Elink Schuurman'' 1938
-

winning portrait
Nora Heysen
at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
''Motherhood'' 1941
–

Ballarat Fine Art Gallery The Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat, both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian H ...

''AAMWS (Private Gwynneth Patterson)'' 1944
– Australian War Memorial {{DEFAULTSORT:Heysen, Nora 1911 births 2003 deaths World War II artists Archibald Prize winners Members of the Order of Australia Australian people of German descent Australian women painters Australian portrait painters People from Hahndorf, South Australia Australian war artists 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian women artists Julian Ashton Art School alumni 21st-century Australian women 21st-century Australian people