painter, illustrator, craftworker, photographer and commercial artist, was born in Bolton, Lancashire, on 6 February 1874, daughter of James Heap, a wine merchant, and Amy Elizabeth, née Bamber. She was educated in Bolton and possibly in York, and later at art schools in Manchester and London. In London she received her 'Art Class Teacher’s Certificate’ (1895) and her 'Certificate for Art Instruction’ in drawing (1897). Little is known of her English life. Sketching tours in England took up some of her time and she probably taught, although support from her family meant that this was not essential.
In 1909 Amy migrated to WA with her brother Frederick and younger sister, Ethel. They arrived in 1910 and joined family members at a group settlement in Busselton, then lived in Claremont and, later, Darlington. Amy and Ethel joined in the artistic life in Perth, becoming members of the WA Society of Arts. Amy exhibited drawings, paintings, stained pokerwork pictures, metalwork, embroidery and gesso work in five exhibitions between 1912 and 1925. Some of the embroidery was a joint effort, designed by Amy and worked by Ethel. In 1912 a local art critic wrote:
Miss Heap … has a greater number and variety of exhibits in the various sections than any other artist, her work showing an artistic versatility that is remarkable.
Between 1933 and 1944 she was an exhibiting member of the Perth Society of Artists (PSA), by which time she was described as 'indefatigable’. Her watercolour, The Inlet, Augusta , exhibited with the PSA in 1936 for sale at ten guineas, is now in the Art Gallery of WA.
During World War I Amy Heap joined the staff of WA Newspapers, which published the West Australian , Western Mail and Daily News , as a photographer and artist. The 1918 Christmas edition of the Western Mail published her photographs. Afterwards, as a 'specialist in embellishment’, she contributed drawings to the same weekly journal. Heap’s attractive drawings bordered photographs, poems, articles and short stories. In an article in the West Australian , Daisy Rossi mentioned Heap’s 'arresting and decorative covers … her sensitive pen and ink drawings’ and her watercolours of 'a delicate refined style’. The first were particularly evident in the popular and colourful Christmas editions of the paper. Her cover of Nuytsia floribunda for the 1929 Christmas issue is particularly striking, as is that of black swans for 1932. With her elegant sense of design, she came to dominate the pages, with the photographer Fred Flood.
Amy Heap retired from the newspaper in about 1934 and went to live with her sister and brother at Albany. A member of the Anglican church, she died there on 17 April 1956. During her lifetime she had been an inveterate traveller, visiting New Zealand, Tasmania and England—where she exhibited in 1938. Labelled a 'brilliant observer of land and people in her adopted country’, she is represented by original work in the Albany Town Council collection, the gift of Sir Claude Hotchin, in Woodbridge House and in the WA Art Gallery.
- Writers:
- Erickson, DorothyNote: Primary
Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
