Nora Heysen

(Australia, 11/01/1911 - 30/12/2003)

Growing up in an environment steeped in artistic curiosity, from a young age, Heysen was encouraged to take up drawing and painting, and was raised to maintain a disciplined observation of nature. As the daughter of a celebrated artist, public perception of her work was inevitably shaped by her father’s reputation, but nevertheless, she refined her handling of colour and light in order to develop a distinctive voice of her own that led her to becoming the first woman to win the Archibald Prize and to be appointed an official war artist during World War Two.

At fifteen years old she began her artistic education by enrolling in classes at the School of Fine Arts in Adelaide, and, just five years later, her paintings had already been purchased by the state galleries of New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland. In 1933, she was given her first solo exhibition at the Royal South Australian Society of Arts where her work expressed her identity and ambitions as a young artist.

Travelling to Europe the following year, she furthered her studies at the Central School of Art and the Royal Academy’s School of Painting, absorbing contemporary approaches to her favoured genres of portraiture and still life in Realist and Modernist styles. Despite often being critiqued by her father for “each flower being seen somewhat separately”, her ability to highlight the qualities and sensations inherent to each subject on her canvas is central to its Modernist tendencies and distinguishes her work from that of her father.

Returning to Australia in 1937, Heysen quickly re-established herself as a serious professional artist and, in 1938, became the first woman to win the Archibald Prize, Australia’s most prestigious award for portraiture, for her portrait of Madame Elink Schuurman. Signalling a shift in the cultural landscape, the achievement was widely recognised as a landmark moment not only for Heysen personally, but also for women across the art world altogether.

During the Second World War, Heysen was appointed Australia’s first official woman war artist and from 1943 to 1946, she was attached to the Australian Women’s Army Service and the Royal Australian Air Force, producing portraits and scenes that documented the experiences and contributions of service personnel, particularly women. Her war works are notable for their restraint and humanity, focusing on individual presence rather than heroic spectacle, and they remain an important visual record of Australia’s wartime history.

After the war, Heysen continued to paint prolifically. Working in portraiture, still life and landscape, she demonstrated a sustained commitment to observational painting, combined with an understated modern sensibility. Whether depicting flowers arranged with quiet elegance, interiors suffused with light or sitters rendered with psychological depth, Heysen brought to her subjects a calm authority and lyrical clarity.

Today, Heysen is recognised not only for her technical accomplishment and artistic integrity, but also as a pioneering figure whose achievements helped redefine the professional visibility and recognition possible for women artists in the twentieth century. Her work is held in major public and private collections and her legacy endures as one of perseverance, innovation and quiet excellence and achievement. 

Image: Nora Heysen, Self-Portrait (1932). Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 61.2 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia.