Joy St Clair Hester (21 August 1920 – 4 December 1960) was an Australian artist. She was a member of the

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 ...

movement and the

Heide Circle The Heide Circle was a loose grouping of Australian artists who lived and worked at "Heide", a former dairy farm on the Yarra River floodplain at Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, counting amongst their number many of Australia's best-known modernis ...

who played an integral role in the development of Australian

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

. Hester is best known for her bold and expressive ink drawings. Her work was charged with a heightened awareness of mortality due to the death of her father during her childhood, the threat of war, and her personal experience with Hodgkin's disease. Hester is most well known for the series ''Face'', ''Sleep'', and ''Love'' (1948–49) as well as the later works, ''The Lovers'' (1956–58).

Biography

Early life

Hester was born on the 21 August 1920 and raised in Elwood to middle-class parents Louise and Robert Hester. Robert died from a heart attack when Hester was twelve. Hester studied art from an early age and was a student at

St Michael's Grammar School , motto_translation = For the Church of God , location = 25 Chapel Street, St Kilda, Victoria , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = Australia Melbourne , ...

from 1933 to 1937. At 17, Hester enrolled in Commercial Art at Brighton Technical School for one year before leaving to attend the National Gallery School in Melbourne. Her curriculum was based in traditional media and practice, however Hester took the opportunity to break free from formal restraints. In 1938 Hester won the Gallery School's Drawing Head from Life prize. Taking up classes at both the Design school, and Painting and Life school gave her early recognition. Her work during this time, though bound by tradition, was concerned with shadow and tonal shading, the relationships between dark and light.

Heide period

In 1938 Hester met fellow artist Albert Tucker and began living with him intermittently in

East Melbourne East Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government areas of ...

. During the same year Hester became a founding member of the

Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museums ...

(CAS), exhibiting with them annually. Hester met Melbourne-based art patron

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 ...

in 1939 at the ''Herald Exhibition'', which brought British and French artworks to Australia for the first time. The two became friends, with Reed nurturing Hester's artistic talent. Spending much of her time at

Heide Heide (; Holsatian: ''Heid'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Dithmarschen. Population: 21,000. The German word ''Heide'' means "heath". In the 15th century four adjoining villages decided ...

with Sunday and her husband John Reed, Hester became a member of the

. She was a contemporary of Sidney Nolan,

Arthur Boyd Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd (24 July 1920 – 24 April 1999) was a leading Australian painter of the middle to late 20th century. Boyd's work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, ...

, Charles Blackman,

John Perceval John de Burgh Perceval AO (1 February 1923 – 15 October 2000) was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s. Other members include ...

Yosl Bergner Yosl Bergner ( he, יוסל ברגנר‎; 13 October 1920 – 18 January 2017), also known as Josl, was an Israeli painter. He was born in Vienna, Austria, grew up in Warsaw, Poland, lived in Melbourne, Australia from 1937 until 1948, whe ...

and

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 ...

during this period. The Heide Circle worked as an extension of the Angry Penguins magazine. Hester was the only woman to be featured in the Angry Penguins publication. One of her most significant works from this time was ''Nude Study, (''c. 1939–41). It was her first use of bold, fluid black line work, which is what she is known for today. During the early 40s, Hester began depicting the ambience of daily life, via ink drawings of street scenes and factory workers. She was influenced by artist Ailsa O'Connor, who had similar concerns in her work. Hester was also drawn to the work of Vassilieff for his philosophical views about how art and life could not be separated. By the mid 40s, Hester relinquished her interest in

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

to concentrate solely on

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

and inks. Her focus shifted towards the motif of the human face, specifically the expression in the eyes. Using minimal and assertive ink strokes, she rendered her figures with emotional intensity. ''A Frightened Woman'' (1945) served as a seminal point in establishing Hester's style and media moving forward. Hester works aimed to capture the psychological horror of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Hester and Tucker married 1941. Five years later Hester gave birth to a son, Sweeney Reed (1944–1979). In 1947, when Sweeney was three, Hester was diagnosed with terminal Hodgkin's lymphoma. Believing she had only 2 years to live, she decided to move to Sydney to live with Melbourne artist Gray Smith, and gave her son into the care of John and Sunday Reed, who subsequently adopted him. Illness impacted heavily on Hester's work and left an indelible mark, loading it with emotional content. During this period Hester produced the drawings that became part of her notable ''Face'', ''Sleep'' and ''Love'' series. These works were exhibited alongside Hester's poetry in 1950 at her first solo show at the Melbourne Bookclub Gallery.

Later life

Hester had two subsequent solo exhibitions in 1955 and 1956 but struggled to sell her art. She typically worked on a small scale in black ink and wash, however, Australian modernism favoured large oil paintings, like those of Nolan. Hester's work failed to garner the same recognition her male peers received, dismissed by critics as "angst-ridden". ''The Lovers'' series (1956–58) were indicative of her maturing and expressive style. She also published poetry and used her drawings to illustrate her words. Joy and Smith had two children, a son, Peregrine, in 1951, and a daughter, Fern, in 1954. The couple married in 1959. After a period of remission Hester suffered a relapse of Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1956 and died on 4 December 1960, aged 40. Hester was laid to rest at the

Box Hill Cemetery Box Hill Cemetery is a cemetery located in Melbourne's eastern suburb of Box Hill, Victoria in Australia. It currently occupies 12.5 ha (31 acres). It is known as the resting place of notable figures from Melbourne and its heritage-registered Co ...

in an unmarked grave, at her behest.

Legacy

John and Sunday Reed organised a commemorative exhibition of Hester's work in 1963. In 1978, a street in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm was named Hester Place in her honour. In 1981, Janine Burke, Hester's biographer, curated the first major retrospective at 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 ...

. Hester's life and work was the subject of a documentary, ''The Good Looker'', in 1995. A plaque was erected in 1999 at the Box Hill Cemetery in honour of Hester's contribution to the arts. Reviewing her work for ''Time'' in 2001, Michael Fitzgerald wrote "Forty-one years after her death, Hester's drawings still suck the oxygen from the air, providing some of the clearest-eyed images in Australian art". In 2018 her ''Love'' and ''The Lovers'' series of works featured in a joint exhibit with

Patricia Piccinini Patricia Piccinini (born 1965 in Freetown, Sierra Leone) is an Australian artist who works in a variety of media, including painting, video, sound, installation, digital prints, and sculpture. Her works focus on "unexpected consequences", conv ...

TarraWarra Museum of Art TarraWarra Museum of Art is an art museum in Tarrawarra, Victoria, 45 kilometres northeast of Melbourne. Founded by philanthropists and art collectors Eva and Marc Besen, it is the first museum of art in Australia supported by a significant pri ...

. Piccinini credited Hester as a major influence on her own practice; stating: "I love the way her painting, especially those with merged features, are simultaneously surreal and figurative. I am really interested in depictions of love and intimacy in my own work, so I find Hester's approach very inspiring". Two plays have been written about her life: ''Joy'' by Christine Croyden, and ''Hester'' by Wendy Beckett. Joy Hester's art was included in the exhibition, ''Know My Name: Australian Women Artists'' ''1900 to Now'' at 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 ...

, in 2021-2022.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* Melbourne Book Club Gallery, 6 February 1950 – 17 February 1950, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * Mirka Cafe, July – August, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * Gallery of Contemporary Art, 9 April 1957 – 23 April 1957, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Posthumous solo exhibitions

* ''Joy Hester'', 3 September 1963 – 21 September 1963, Museum of Modern Art and Design of Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Drawings by Joy from a private collection'', 2 August 1966 – 12 August 1966, South Yarra Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Joy Hester Graphics'', 20 October 1970 – 2 November 1970, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Joy Hester'', 6 October 1976 – 25 October 1976, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Joy Hester'', April 1977 – May 1977, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. * ''Joy Hester, Early Works on Paper'', 14 June 1980 – 3 July 1980, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Joy Hester Retrospective'', 29 September 1981 – 5 December 1981,

, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Joy Hester, Early Works'', 2 March 1982 – 18 March 1982, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Joy Hester: Remember Me'', 28 November 2020 – 21 February 2021, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Group exhibitions

* ''Contemporary Art Society Inaugural Exhibition'', 6 June 1939 – 25 June 1939, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition'', 12 October 1941 – 31 October 1941, Hotel Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition'', 4 August 1942 – 15 August 1942, Athenaeum Art Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition'', 4 August 1943 – 15 August 1943, Velasquez Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition'', 21 August 1945 – 31 August 1945, Myer Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition'', November 1946, Education Building, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. * ''Royal Tour Contemporary Art Exhibition'', February 1954 – March 1954, Mirka's Studio, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Commemorative Exhibition'', 6 April 1954 – 23 April 1954, Tye's Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition'', 10 May 1955 – 21 May 1955, Preston Motors, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Drawing Exhibition'', 19 October 1955 – November 1955, Mirka's Studio, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Inaugural Gift Exhibition'', 1 June 1956 – 16 June 1956, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Victoria Australia. * ''Olympic Exhibition'', 16 November 1956 – 18 December 1956, organised by the Contemporary Art Society in conjunction with the Gallery of Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Poem'', March 1957 – April 1957, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Contemporary Art Society Annual interstate Exhibition'', 26 November 1957 – 6 December 1957, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Collection'', 30 September 1958 – 10 October 1958, Museum of Modern Art of Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Herald Outdoor Art Show'', 6 March 1959 – 14 March 1959,

Treasury Gardens The Treasury Gardens consist of on the south-eastern side of the Melbourne central business district, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The gardens are bounded by Wellington Parade, Spring Street, Treasury Place, and by the Fitzroy Garde ...

, Melbourne, Australia.

Posthumous group exhibitions

* ''Paintings from the collection of Mr & Mrs Carnegie'', 27 October 1966 – 30 November 1966, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Paintings from the collection of Allen D. Christensen'', 7 December 1976 – 22 December 1976, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''The Heroic Years of Australian Painting: 1940–65'', 1977, touring exhibition. * ''Project 21: Women's Images of Women'', 15 October 1977 – 13 November 1977, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. * ''Spring Exhibition'', 24 October 1977 – 7 November 1977, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Genesis of a Gallery, Part 2'', 1978, from the Collection of the Australian National Gallery, touring exhibition. * ''Autumn Exhibition'', 7 April 1978 – 20 April 1978, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Aspects of Australian Drawing'', 1979,

Art Gallery of Western Australia The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is a public art gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia and is supported and managed by the ...

, touring exhibition. * ''Australian Drawings of the Thirties and Forties'', 21 February 1980 – 1 April 1980, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Inaugural Exhibition'', 12 November 1981 – January 1982, Heide Park and Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''Glimpses of the Forties'', 12 September 1982 – 7 November 1982, Heide Park and Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. * ''In the Company of Women: 100 years of Australian women's art from the Cruthers collection'', 16 February 1995 – 13 March 1995, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Western Australia. * '' Women Hold Up Half the Sky'', March 1995 – April 1995,

, Canberra, ACT, Australia. * ''Review'', 8 March 1995 – 8 June 1995, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. * ''Eveolution: An exhibition of women's art from the Newcastle Region Art Gallery collection'', 1995, 9 March 1995 – June 1995, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. * ''A l'hombre des jeunes filles et des fleurs: In the shadow of young girls and flowers'', 10 March 1995 – 28 May 1995, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla , Victoria, Australia. * ''Arthur Boyd: Family and Friends'', 1997,

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 ...

, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. * ''Modern Australian Women: paintings and prints'' ''1925–1945'', 24 November 2000 – 25 February 2001, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. * ''Joy Hester and Friends'', 1 September 2001 – 28 October 2001, National Gallery of Australia, ACT, Australia."Joy Hester & Friends – 1 September – 28 October 2001"
National Gallery of Australia * ''Those Who Made and Those Who Saw: Portraits of the Heide Circle'', 3 November 2007 – 15 June 2008,

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 ...

, Bulleen, Victoria. * ''Look, Look Again'', 20 October 2011 – 15 December 2012, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia. * ''Patricia Piccinini and Joy Hester: Through Love…'', 24 November 2018 – 11 March 2019, Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria, Australia. * ''Know My Name: Australian Women Artists'' ''1900 to Now,'' 2021-2022,

, ACT, Australia.

Collections

Hester's prominence, alongside her Heide Circle counterparts, in shaping Australian modernism have resulted in many Australian institutions acquiring her work. * Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, NSW) * Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, SA) *

(Perth, WA) * Ballarat Fine Art Gallery (Ballarat, VIC) * Benalla Art Gallery (Benalla, VIC) * Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum (Castlemaine, VIC) *

Cruthers Collection of Women's Art Cruthers Collection of Women's Art is a collection of more than 700 artworks by Australian women, held at the University of Western Australia. It is the only public collection focused on women's art in Australia. The Cruthers Collection was fo ...

at the University of Western Australia (Perth, WA) * Heide Museum of Modern Art (Bulleen, Melbourne, VIC) * La Trobe Collection, State Library Of Victoria (Melbourne, VIC) * Mornington Peninsula Arts Centre (Mornington Peninsula, VIC) *

Newcastle Art Gallery The Newcastle Art Gallery (formerly the Newcastle City Art Gallery, Newcastle Region Art Gallery) is a large, public art museum in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. History Founded in 1945 with an art collection consisting of 123 works ...

(Newcastle, NSW) * Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery, (Darwin, NT) * Parliament House (Canberra, ACT) *

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galler ...

(Brisbane, QLD) *

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) is a museum located in Hobart, Tasmania. The museum was established in 1846, by the Royal Society of Tasmania, the oldest Royal Society outside England. The TMAG receives 400,000 visitors annually. ...

(Hobart, TAS) * The

(Canberra, ACT) * The

(Melbourne, VIC) *

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

(Adelaide, SA) *

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

(Melbourne, VIC) *

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...

Art Collection (Perth, WA) * Warrnambool Art Gallery (Warrnambool, VIC)

Published poems, letters and miscellaneous

* To the Editor, ''Argus'', 23 August 1940, p. 5. * "Untitled", ''A Comment'', March 1943, no. 5, n.p. * "Micetto, Father of Kisses", and "Awake", ''Ern Malley's Journal'', vol. 1, no. 1, November, 1952, pp. 18–19 * ''Memorial Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture of Danila Cassilieff'', Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, June, 1956. Catalogue note by Hester.