Design and Art Australia Online

painter, was born on 11 January 1911 at Hahndorf, a village in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. The fourth of eight children she received her earliest art training from her father, the painter Hans Heysen . Her mother Selma, also a talented artist, encouraged her daughter in her artistic pursuits. Their home, The Cedars, situated in a delightful rural setting, provided the ideal environment for a large family. Nora spent her early years accompanying her father bicycling around Hahndorf on painting expeditions. From the age of 15 she spent five years at the School of Fine Arts in North Adelaide. Her training, under F. Millward Grey , was traditional: drawing from plaster casts for several years before starting life classes. She also continued to draw with her father, which provided a freer perspective.

In 1930, while still a student, she did 24 pen, ink and wash drawings to illustrate Woggheeguy , a collection of Dreamtime legends by Katie Langloh Parker (Catherine Stow); the originals are in the NLA (National Library of Australia, Canberra). She exhibited with the Society of Artists in Sydney the same year and the trustees of the Art Galleries of New South Wales and South Australia purchased her work. With the sale of her first picture she converted the stables at her parents’ property into a studio so she no longer had to share her father’s. She was also able to pay a regular model, a local girl from Hahndorf, resulting in several portraits of 'Ruth’. She had her first solo exhibition with the Royal SA Society of Artists in 1933, aged 22.

In 1934 she accompanied her family to England, remaining there after they returned in order to study under Bernard Meninsky at the Central School of Art. The arrival of her sculptor friend Everton (Evie) Stoke from Adelaide in 1935 provided an opportunity to share expeditions and experiences. The same year Orovida Pissarro introduced Heysen to her father, Lucien Pissarro, who encouraged her to make her colours purer, and she visited Paris. In 1936 she enrolled at the Byam Shaw School under Ernest Jackson. The following year she travelled to Italy before returning home. At once realising her need for independence, Heysen moved to Sydney where Sidney Ure Smith assisted her to become a member of the Society of Artists. The following year, she became the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Archibald Prize for her portrait of Madame Elink Schuurman. This brought commissions and recognition and gave her confidence in herself as an artist. In 1943 she was the first woman to be appointed an official war artist. Sent to New Guinea, she met Dr Robert Black whom she joined after the war in London where he was involved in specialist study of tropical medicine. They married at Sydney in 1953 and the following year purchased The Chalet in Hunters Hill, her first permanent home since The Cedars. They travelled to tropical regions and Heysen returned to New Guinea and resumed an earlier fascination: painting the local people.

Heysen’s father died in 1968 and her marriage ended several years later. She had her first retrospective exhibition in 1984 at the Old Clarendon Gallery (South Australia) and another in 1989 at the National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney. In 1994 she attended the opening of 'Through Women’s Eyes’ (Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ACT) and saw work she had painted 50 years earlier. Heysen died in Sydney on 30 December 2003.

Writers:

Wilkins, Lola

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

1992