Bernard Hesling b. 8 June 1905

Also known as
  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator),
  • Artist (Painter)
Bernard Hesling was a mid-20th century UK-born painter who lived and worked in Sydney from 1928 until 1962, when he moved to Adelaide. He was a designer and muralist in the 1950s and later a successful vitreous-enamel painter who did much to foster vitreous-enamel artwork on steel plate in Australia. He was also a cartoonist, journalist and author of humorous autobiographical books.
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Name
Bernard Hesling (OAM)
Also known as
Gender
Male
Roles
  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator)
  • Artist (Painter)
Other Occupation
  • Marbler -
  • Art critic -
  • Author -
  • Advertising director -
  • House painter -
Birth date
8 June 1905
Birth place
Wales, UK
Death date
13 June 1987
Death place
Adelaide, SA
Active Period
  • c.1924 - 1987
Arrival
  • 1928
Residence
  • 1928 - 1930 Sydney, NSW
  • 1939 - 1962 Sydney, NSW
  • 1962 - 1987 Adelaide, SA
Languages
  • English
Initial Record Data Source
  • Black and white artists

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Biography
Date modified Oct. 11, 2012, 5:42 p.m. Oct. 11, 2012, 12:52 p.m.
1. (Walter) Bernard Hesling was from a Yorkshire family. He was born in 1905 while the family was temporarily in Wales. They returned to Yorkshire in 1907. He left school at age 15 and was apprenticed to a firm of painters and decorators. He studied art at Halifax night-school, where his teacher was the artist Joseph Mellor Hanson (1900-1963). After six years of 'boredom' in the job he got the sack at age 21 and went to London to try his hand at acting. ¶

2. In 1928, out of work in London and promised a job in Sydney, he migrated and worked on Sydney shop-window displays at £6 a week. He had a room at Burdekin House, home to various artists and writers. In 1929 he exhibited his abstract paintings but sold only three. He did not paint again seriously until 1943, when he became a part-time cartoonist. He was attracted to Sydney because of the prospect of a job and because his oldest brother, Charles, a gas engineer turner, migrated there in 1912. Charles died in a car accident at Lane Cove in 1931, aged 39, leaving a widow and young child.

3. At the start of the Depression Bernard went back to London, where he worked first as a display artist at 9p an hour. In 1933 he married Flo' (Florence Pickles) and became an art director at Elstree film studios, London, where he worked for three or four years. He returned to Sydney with Flo' in 1939 with £50. They and other fit passengers served as U-boat spotters on the long voyage. For a short time he worked on accounts at Australia Paper Mills in Sydney. ¶

4. In 1929 he had become friendly with new residents at Sydney's 'bush suburb' Castlecrag and its designer, the architect Walter Burley Griffin. See the 'Life with Burley Griffin' chapter in his book _Stir Up This Stew_ (24. below). On returning to Sydney in 1939 he resumed his interest in Castlecrag, where he and Flo' later bought a house. ¶

h3. draftsman, cartoonist and journalist ¶

5. . For a short time he worked on accounts at Australia Paper Mills in Sydney. ¶

During the war he did design work at Slazenger's Munitions Annexe, Botany (artist Arthur Murch was there too). In his spare time he drew daily cartoons for editor Brian Penton at _The Daily Telegraph_, which caused some tension at Slazenger's. They were republished in _Hesling's Cartoons_ (Consolidated Press Limited, 1945, 96pp). Examples of his _Telegraph_ naive outline-style cartoons on postwar food shortages and manpower control are in Coleman & Tanner's _Cartoons of Australian History_, <ref>1967, pp130-31.</ref> ¶

6. In his autobiography _Dinkum Pommie_ (see 24. below, p 178) he said of his political cartoons: "Had I stuck to comic sketches of American servicemen buying tickets for _Il Trovatore_ on the black market and such like, all would have been well. But my drawing had improved so much by now that I could get passable likenesses of Eddie Ward and Mr. Curtin. Brian saw me as one of those political bores - the scorched-earth boys who draw Russian bears and rising suns using soot instead of ink. What he didn't like about me, of course, was having to write letters about art to pedantic readers who objected to a Prime Minister with six fingers on the hand instead of five." ¶

7. Transferred later in the war to the Ministry of Munitions, Hesling worked with *George Molnar* , whom he claims he prodded into becoming a cartoonist (_Dinkum Pommie_ pp.182-6) and who gave him lessons in drawing in return. Hesling left the Ministry to work full-time on _The Daily Telegraph_ and was sent to Canberra (p.187), which he hated. Sacked from the _Telegraph_ , he moved to _The Sydney Morning Herald_ , then to _Smith's Weekly_ to replace *John Quinn* (who moved to _Woman's Day_ in 1947) where he remained for four years until it closed (in 1950). ¶

8. He also contributed occasional whimsical cartoons and articles to _Australia: National Journal_ , eg. May 1947, _Juniors' Journal_ and to _Australia_ _: Week-end Book_ . Vol.2 (1943) of the latter has seven cartoons, eg. couple looking at nudes, satyrs and pirates on beach and saying, "Aren't those the people we met at Mr. Lindsay's?" Vol.3 (1944) has 10 cartoons, eg rose plant growing hands, "We think it's a Salvador Dali". Vol.4 (1945) features only two works by Hesling. Another wartime book he illustrated with simple, whimsical, line drawings was _These Beastly Australians_ (Australasian Publishing Company, Sydney, n.d.), short, light verse by Leon Gellert about various Australian animals. References to wartime and Macarthur make it clear it's wartime. ¶

9. Out of work in 1950 Hesling did a few recorded talks for the BBC at 30/- a time. He wrote freelance articles for the _SMH_ at about 8 quid per 1000 words, 'and, of course, I did joke drawings. There's a terrific market for these; I remember once _Man_ paying me three guineas for a whole page of them, one of which I later sold to the _New Yorker_ (as an idea) for $40.' He also drew cartoons for _Meanjin_, _Quadrant_, _Nation_, the _Manchester Guardian_ and the _Listener_ (London). ¶

10. He wrote 'social commentary' for the _Current Affairs Bulletin_: 'The Family' CAB vol.13 no5 21 Dec 1953 13pp and 'Vocational Guidance' vol.15 no5 20 Dec 1954 13pp. He wrote art criticism for the Sydney _Observer_ until editor Donald Horne sacked him in 1958 for a critical review of a Blake exhibition he hadn't seen; his replacement was *Robert Hughes*, who told the story in his _Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir_ (Vintage 2007 p162) andlater described Hesling as 'an elderly immigrant Yorkshireman … an artist who made his basic living painting garish enamel tea trays'. ¶

h3. painter and enamellist ¶

11. Hesling painted numerous murals from 1950 until about 1957 in NSW, Victoria, SA and North Queensland (Emerald) and 'decorated his merry writings with his own curious humorous drawings’ (Blaikie, 132). Among his clients were Qantas (his first mural, later lost when the building was demolished), Marcus Clark store, ES&A bank, Ambassador Restaurant. His cousin Roger Hainsworth recalled (2012) Bernard telling him in 1957 that 1956 was the most successful of his life, earning him £5000 (average wage then £900) from painting murals in pub lounges that came into existence only when 'six o'clock swill' was legislated out of existence by reform of hotel licensing hours. That event had an enormous impact on Bernard's life, and the extra income financed his swimming pool and his much-loved MG Magnette car. ¶

12. In _Dinkum Pommie_ (p202) he said 'In the beginning my main interest was in easel painting but, as this is hardly a job for a grown man, I turned to murals and big brush jobs; and then, as I often was asked to quote on exterior murals – and oil paint is no good for this – I read up on vitreous enamel and set about bringing this craft up to date. You’ve probably seen the stuff: tables, saucepans, jugs, kettles …and exterior murals with enamel’. ¶

13. In _Art Ruined My Career in Crime_ , in the chapter titled 'My Enamels 1957-1977’, he said that: a Sydney department store launched his enamels in 1957; in 1958, 1959 and 1961 he held at David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, what were probably the world’s first exhibitions of large brush-painted enamelled panels; and that since 1957 he had produced over 4000 pieces – ashtrays, trays, tables, wall panels etc. In that chapter he set out his method for making vitreous enamel artwork. The book has many colour illustrations of his artwork. He exhibited his work in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Europe and he will be best remembered for his vitreous enamel painting. ¶

14. Bernard and wife Flo’ left their longtime home at 4 The Redoubt, Castlecrag, Sydney, in 1962 and moved to 21 Travers Place, North Adelaide. He was attracted by the Adelaide Festival and easy access to facilities for firing his vitreous enamel paintings on steel plates. Bernard cultivated executives of the Adelaide-based Simpson home-appliance company, who let him bake his enamels with their fridges and stoves (he paid them off in pictures). This gave him the vital entry that no-one else had. By the 1970s such white-goods were no longer made from enamelled metal, and this and his advancing age restricted his activities. ¶

15. At an exhibition of his enamels at Underwood Galleries in Sydney in 1965 Hesling said: 'I have expressed myself in many different ways in order to prove the validity and versatility of vitreous enamel as a painting medium. Painting in enamel is no harder than painting in oils - merely different. Its great advantage as a medium lies in its suitability for exterior mural work and in its durability at all temperatures. It has been suggested that enamel as an art form cannot be entirely controlled. This is nonsense as a glance at the portrait work of any one of the famous enamellers will show.'(_SMH_ 14 Nov 1965 p97) ¶

16. His lively designs in vivid colours usually drew favourable comment. But a big exhibition of his plates and panels in Canberra in 1968 did not. The critic Robin Wallace-Crabb commented: 'In this exhibition he works in a variety of styles...Hesling is obviously capable of handling this medium with skill but he seems to lack the ability to translate witty (though sometimes rather tediously so) ideas into pictures. Apart from the general lack of control in organising his colours and tones and apart from a tendency to be inconsistent in intention within a single work the thing that disturbed me about this show is the failure of the pictures to convey visually the wit of the idea that was their starting point...[etc]' (_The Canberra Times_ 17 Dec 1968 p20) ¶

17. In the next day's issue of the newspaper Hesling said that painting should be enjoyed as decorative only and not given complicated meanings and explanations. 'Painting began for decorative purposes - in churches, for example. Only lately has it become a language of its own. I'm sick and tired of serious evaluations of enormous canvasses with stripes on them.' (_The Canberra Times_ 18 Dec 1968 p22) ¶

18. In 1969 he recorded with Hazel de Berg an entertaining account of his life and family, his varied career and his vitreous enamelling: "I've never been very interested in art - I'm interested in me painting - it's the sort of thing everybody should do" etc.(Hazel de Berg Collection, sound recording, Oral TRC 1/368-370 National Library of Australia) ¶

19. The _SMH_ in 1971 said that Hesling has often been described as the first man to introduce vitreous enamel work to Australia but he prefers to be known as the man who fostered it here. "There is more vitreous enamel work done by me and my school in Adelaide than in the whole world." ("Art: the way out of an orphanage" _SMH_ 23 May 1971 p130) ¶

20. In 1924 Hesling's friend and art-teacher Joseph Mellor Hanson a won a prize to study art in Paris. Hesling visited him there for three weeks and met French artists. He wrote later: 'I had forgotten my Paris period until I read that Alan McCulloch in his Encyclopaedia of Australian Art quotes me as saying "In Paris aged eighteen I was influenced by the Douanier Rousseau". I have no doubt I said this but at the time Alan was interviewing me there were art buyers within hearing and as I am quite as interested in the art of selling as in the art of painting, I naturally tied myself to Rousseau (then popular) whereas unbelievably I began as a freak-out modern and only learnt how _not_ to draw when I was over forty.' (_Art Ruined My Career in Crime_ 1977 p26) ¶

21. Hesling has said that the first primitive to influence him was not Rousseau but artist William Dobell's father (around 1944), who painted without training. McCulloch's encyclopaedia (2006) now says Hesling's first paintings were similar in style to Rousseau's naif style. McCulloch also says that: he was born in England [Wales]; he worked in Paris [he was there on holidays]; he worked at Elstree Studios, Sydney [London]; he pioneered vitreous enamelling in Australia [he fostered it]. ¶

22. Examples of his art are held in the Art Gallery of WA, Hamilton Art Gallery, National Gallery of Australia and Art Gallery of SA. His style sits between a kind of modern decorativeness and mid-century expressionism post Boyd et al. The Director of Hamilton Art Gallery has commented (2012): "Hesling's work is technically very proficient in a medium that few Australians have mastered. His imagery is that of a mature artist ie fully resolved and coherent within its own style". ¶

23. He had a long association with Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide. In 1999, long after his death, Greenhill Galleries offered his 'long lost' 1969 [1971?] set of four 'Australia Day' enamel panels for sale at $100,000 (_The Advertiser_ 2 Oct 1999 p60). They showed the ship _Buffalo_ en route to Australia in 1836 etc. The panels are reproduced in b&w in his _Art Ruined My Career in Crime_ 1977, pp43-45. ¶

h3. author ¶

24. His first book, an illustrated account of Sydney, _Sydney Observed_ (1953), was described as a book of 'gentle mockery and wry delight' in _SMH_ 14 Nov 1953 p8. It was followed by several humorous illustrated autobiographies that told of his Yorkshire childhood and his later life in Sydney: ¶
• _Little and Orphan_ (1954, repub 1967), which (Prof) A D Hope said 'tapped a vein of pure and natural comedy...It is one of the most engaging books I have read for a long time' in _SMH_ 29 Jan 1955 p11. (In _Little and Orphan_ Bernard's brother Charles is called 'Holroyd'); ¶
• _The Dinkumization and Depommification of an Artful English Immigrant_ (1963)(repub. as _The Dinkum Pommie_ (1964)), which Clement Semmler said contained 'the essence of Mr Hesling's philosophy and observation of his adopted country and countrymen: "Today nobody starves (nobody white). This being so, anyone can paint, write poems or play the fiddle just for the hell of it..."'; ¶
• _Stir Up This Stew_ (1966), praised by Olaf Ruhen in _SMH_ 11 June 1966; ¶
• _I Left My Tears in the Fridge_ (1972), praised by Clement Semmler: 'the Hesling comic vision is based on shrewd observation'. (_SMH_ 9 Sept 1972 p22); ¶
• _Around the World on an Old Age Pension_ (1974)(which includes _My Picture Book_) praised by Clement Semmler in _SMH_ 11 May 1974 p13; and ¶
• _Art Ruined My Career in Crime_ (1977). ¶

h3. playwright and performer ¶

25. In his youth in London he sought to be an actor - see his article "Behind the Footlights" SMH 3 Jan 1953 p6. In Sydney in 1965, helped by an actor friend who had won the Opera House Lottery, Hesling, with a cast of actors, performed his play _My Life, with an Interval for Asperin_ (sic) in Sydney in 1965 (_The Australian Women's Weekly_ 20 Oct 1965 p12). In the 1970s, in Adelaide, Canberra etc, it was a one-man stage performance, as was his _Bear with Hesling or My Life and Art Times_ (1977). Among the press notices Stephen Murray Smith said 'Bernard Hesling is one of the funniest men in Australia and his stories are famous amongst the few who have been privileged to hear them. He did not give us stories, though, but his life - we're still laughing - and or crying'. ¶

26. In the Hazel de Berg recording cited above he gave background information on his stage productions. ¶

h3. Order of Australia Medal ¶

27. Hesling was awarded an OAM in June 1985. The citation read: "For contributions to the visual, performing and literary arts. Pioneered in Australia the use of vitreous enamels. Published a number of books illustrated with his own paintings and drawings. His cartoons and writings have also appeared in various newspapers." _The Advertiser_ (17 June 1985, p2) noted the award and described Bernard's varied life in its Monday Profile article "A colorful 80 years, and still making his mark". Chris Butler's article "Bernard Hesling: A self-confessed amateur nut-case" _The Adelaide Review_ Dec 1984/Jan 1985, was a one-page biography. ¶

h3. personal life ¶

28. The Heslings were a Yorkshire family temporarily in Wales when Bernard was born on 8 June 1905, fourth child of Walter Hesling, woolbuyer, and his wife Louise Ruth (Pickles). In 1907 his father died and the family moved back to Yorkshire and settled at 37 Ripon street, Halifax. His mother's father was Bradford alderman William Pickles - obituaries in _The Yorkshire Observer_ 31 May 1909 and _The Bradford Weekly Telegraph_ 4 June 1909 (p12). ¶

29. The Heslings and the Pickles were Methodists until, when Bernard was young, his mother took to Christian Science. Bernard had two older brothers, Charles (2. above) and James, who became a Christian Science prison chaplain, and an older sister, Hannah, a jewellery maker. ¶

30. Bernard married Flo' (Florence May Pickles), aged 20, in 1933 in London. She too was from a Yorkshire family but no relation to Bernard's mother. Long a sufferer from severe arthritis, Flo' died on 21 May 1970. There were no children. ¶

31. It is likely he became an Australian citizen on 26 January 1949 under the _Australian Citizenship Act 1948_ as a British subject resident in Australia for the previous five years. (Advice from Dept of Immigration and Citizenship in 2012.) ¶

32. In 1957 Bernard sponsored historian Dr D Roger Hainsworth (born Yorkshire 1931), son of his first-cousin artist Lilian Hainsworth, as an assisted migrant to Australia. Dr Hainsworth was at Adelaide University from 1965 until retirement in 1993. ¶

33. Hesling’s paintings, books, articles, plays and performances reflected his extrovert nature and lively imagination. He was a cheerful, witty conversationalist and story-teller who enjoyed publicity and promoted himself as a bon vivant and eccentric artist. He had little formal education and training but he was talented and energetic. His confidence as an entrepreneur and his confessed 'armour-plated ego’ helped him achieve much and he led a happy life in his adopted country. He was left-wing in political views and had no religious beliefs. ¶

34. In his later years Hesling lived at the Helping Hand Centre, Adelaide. He died aged 82 on 13 June 1987. He bequeathed his body to the Faculty of Medicine in Adelaide, having told his friends that he always wanted to go to university. An obituary by Tim Lloyd "Hesling: a versatile, lively life" was published in _The Advertiser_ of 16 June 1987 p.17. ¶

35. State Library of NSW holds some of his drawings and a quantity of his correspondence. See also entry on Bernard Hesling on the ANU's _Obituaries Australia_ website: http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/hesling-bernard-14599In 1956 he earned £5000 (average wage then £900) from painting murals in pub lounges that came into existence only when 'six o'clock swill' was legislated out of existence by reform of hotel licensing hours. ¶

In his autobiography _Dinkum Pommie_ (p202) he said 'In the beginning my main interest was in easel painting but, as this is hardly a job for a grown man, I turned to murals and big brush jobs; and then, as I often was asked to quote on exterior murals – and oil paint is no good for this – I read up on vitreous enamel and set about bringing this craft up to date. You’ve probably seen the stuff: tables, saucepans, jugs, kettles …and exterior murals with enamel’. ¶

David Jones department store, Sydney, launched his enamels in 1957. He exhibited his work in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Europe and he will be best remembered for his vitreous enamel painting. ¶

With his wife Flo he moved from Sydney to Adelaide in 1962, attracted by the Adelaide Festival and easy access to facilities for firing his vitreous enamel paintings on steel plates. The Adelaide-based Simpson home-appliance company let him bake his enamels with their fridges and stoves, which gave him the vital entry that no-one else had. By the 1970s such white-goods were no longer made from enamelled metal, and this and his advancing age restricted his activities. ¶

At an exhibition of his enamels at Underwood Galleries in Sydney in 1965 Hesling said: 'I have expressed myself in many different ways in order to prove the validity and versatility of vitreous enamel as a painting medium. Painting in enamel is no harder than painting in oils - merely different. Its great advantage as a medium lies in its suitability for exterior mural work and in its durability at all temperatures. It has been suggested that enamel as an art form cannot be entirely controlled. This is nonsense as a glance at the portrait work of any one of the famous enamellers will show.'(_SMH_ 14 Nov 1965 p97) ¶

The _SMH_ in 1971 said that Hesling has often been described as the first man to introduce vitreous enamel work to Australia but he prefers to be known as the man who fostered it here. "There is more vitreous enamel work done by me and my school in Adelaide than in the whole world." ("Art: the way out of an orphanage" _SMH_ 23 May 1971 p130). In total he produced over 4000 pieces – ashtrays, trays, tables, wall panels etc. ¶

Hesling was awarded an OAM in 1985: "For contributions to the visual, performing and literary arts. Pioneered in Australia the use of vitreous enamels. Published a number of books illustrated with his own paintings and drawings. His cartoons and writings have also appeared in various newspapers." ¶

He died on 13 June 1987. ¶