Hans Heysen

(b Hamburg, 8 Oct 1877; d Hahndorf, nr Adelaide, 2 July 1968). Australian painter and printmaker of German birth. His family settled in South Australia in 1884. Having attended the Norwood Art School under James Ashton (1859-1935), he studied in Paris at the Acad?mie Julian, Colarossi's academy and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and travelled in Europe. He was particularly influenced by Constable, the Barbizon school, George Clausen, Ernest Atkinson Hornel and Frank Brangwyn. In 1904, after returning to Adelaide, he sold major oils to the National Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (Coming Home), and the National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (Mystic Morn). In 1908 he moved to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. Heysen recorded the labours of the German farmers who had settled in the area, in oils, watercolours, drawings and (occasionally) etchings: for Heysen the rural labourers of Hahndorf were the equivalent of Millet's Fontainebleau peasants. This aspect of his work reached its peak in Red Gold (1913; Adelaide, A.G. S. Australia; see AUSTRALIA, fig. 10); his later paintings were somewhat repetitive.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Cattle Drinking 1915

Sir (Hans) Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franz Heysen, OBE (8 October 1877–2 July 1968) was a well-known German Australian artist. He was particularly recognized for his watercolours of the Australian bush. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.

Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franze Heysen was born in Hamburg, Germany. He migrated to Adelaide in South Australia with his family in 1884 at the age of 7. As a young boy Heysen showed an early interest in art. At 14 he left school to work with a hardware merchant, later studying art during nights at Art School in his spare time.

In 1912 Hans Heysen had earned enough from his art to purchase a property called "The Ceders" near Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills, which remained as his home until his death in 1968 aged 90.

The Heysen Trail was named after Sir Hans Heysen.

His daughter Nora Heysen was also a successful artist.

Wynne Prize

Heysen won the Wynne Prize nine times. His winning works were:

• 1904 - Mystic Morn
• 1909 - Summer (watercolour)
• 1911 - Hauling Timber
• 1920 - Toilers (watercolour)
• 1922 - The Quarry (watercolour)
• 1924 - Afternoon in Autumn (watercolour)
• 1926 - Farmyard, Frosty Morning
• 1931 - Red Gums of the Far North (watercolour)
• 1932 - Brachina Gorgeh

External links

• article at the Australian Dictionary of Biography
• education kit at the National Gallery of Victoria
• The three gums - Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

See also

Visual arts of Australia

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