Picture Study - Hans Heysen

Hans Heysen (1877-1968) is said to have been the first Australian painter to have recognised the beauty of the Australian eucalypts, or gum trees and has been called 'the portrait painter of the Australian gum tree.'

Heysen was born in Germany and came to Australia when he was six years old. He eventually made his home at Hahndorf in the Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia, an area which inspired many of his paintings.

An Early Summer Morning Ambleside

The Art Gallery of South Australia has an excellent guide for families for a study of Hans Heysen's paintings:

'Look at how Heysen has used layers of watercolour to paint this landscape.

What weather report would you give after looking at this painting?

 How has Heysen created a sense of mood and atmosphere in this painting?' 

The Wet Road 

The Hillside, Glen Osmond

Summer

 Flinder's Ranges Landscape

 Edge of the Clearing

 Drought Sheep

Colin Thiele said of him, 'Hans Heysen was one of the great landscape painters of Australia. His superb draughtsmanship, his wonderful control of medium – especially watercolour and charcoal – his handling of light, his power of composition and his intense awareness of natural form and texture, combined to make him unique among the representational painter of this country. Nobody in Australia had studied the gum tree as he had, or analysed its singular character.......His, indeed, was one of the longest and most distinguished careers in the history of Australian art.'

Sewing  (The Artist's Wife)

A Lord of the Bush