Hans Heysen's early talent backed by four Adelaide patrons but 1908 Melbourne show his big breakthrough
Judith Fletcher's early-1920s photo of Hans Heysen and his Droving into the light (1914-21).
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia and Art Gallery of South Australia
Hans (Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franz) Heysen was born in Hamburg, Germany, accompanying mother Maria and four siblings to join father Louis in South Australia in 1884.
From 1885, Hans Heysen attended East Adelaide (Flinders Street) Model and four other schools in Adelaide, getting a bilingual education and showing early artistic skill. His father moved from a series of unsuccessful enterprises until he became a produce merchant. Heysen left school in 1892, working first in a hardware store and then on one of his father's produce carts. At 14, he bought his first paints: “I saw a drainpipe with stalks and reeds … It seemed to me beautiful so I painted it”.
With his growing interest in painting and drawing, Heysen quickly distinguished himself at James Ashton’s Norwood art school. At 16, he was painting so well that Ashton bought his watercolour, The wet road – later in the Art Gallery of South Australia. During the next five years, his work was exhibited regularly in Adelaide.
From an early age, Heysen developed a deep love of the Adelaide Hills, tramping about with his paintbox and stool. One of his favourite spots was the Onkaparinga Valley near the villages of Hahndorf and Grunthal.
He was fortunate in his patrons. Robert Barr Smith paid the fees for 12 months at Adelaide’s school of design under H.P. (Harry) Gill and in 1899 four prominent businessmen offered Heysen an advance of £400 to finance his studies in Europe in return for the right to recoup their outlay by selling whatever he painted while abroad. Heysen accepted the offer eagerly.
For four years, he worked hard in Europe—first in Paris at the Académie Julian and Colarossi's Academy under masters including Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant and at the Académie des Beaux Arts and later in Italy. There were also summer painting excursions to Holland and Scotland, and a hasty visit to Germany.
He returned to Adelaide in 1903. He later reported that the impact of Australian light as he sailed up St Vincent's Gulf was like a slap in the face, profoundly affecting his attitude and vision. Almost at once he turned his back on Europe and concentrated on Australian landscape.
Heysen started to earn his living by teaching and painting. He married one of his pupils, Selma (Sally) Bartels, in 1904 at the Bartels' bluestone house on Hurtle Square, Adelaide. He sold pictures to the state galleries in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and to private buyers, but his one-man shows in Adelaide were failures.
Finally, some of his friends, particularly Emanuel Phillips Fox, arranged a one-man exhibition in Melbourne. Opened by prime minister Alfred Deakin in 1908, it was a phenomenal success. Encouraged by his wife, Heysen decided to give up teaching and rent a cottage in the hills. The Melbourne exhibition success brought commissions from patrons such as Nellie Melba and Victoria's governor, along with publicity and appreciation from critics and collectors such as Lionel Lindsay and Baldwin Spencer.
A second Melbourne exhibition in 1912 enabled Heysen to buy The Cedars, set in 36 acres near Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. He lived there for the rest of his life, recording the essence of the landscape and the German farmers in the fields. His newly built studio, standing among trees on the slope above the house, was idyllic in its setting, and a large family of growing children made for a busy happy household that the passions of World War I didn’t entirely cloud.
Heysen was fortunate in being able to mount a third successful Melbourne exhibition before the war intensified. It was opened by Melba on 1915 and sales were again outstanding.
