Hans HEYSEN
Germany 1877 – Australia 1968
Australia from 1884; Europe, England 1899-1903

White gums 1926
oil on canvas
83.3 (h) x 105.0 (w) cm
Tamworth Regional Gallery

“The beauty of the gum is a quiet beauty … It is a poet’s tree, a painter’s tree … But even in my short stay of five years in Hahndorf thousands of acres have been cut down for firewood and many of my old favourites have gone. In fact so often has this happened that I approach them with caution so as to make myself as little conspicuous as possible when painting them—it seems that the mere fact of my admiring a tree seems to draw the owner’s attention to its usefulness for firewood.”[1]

It was with regret that I saw two fine white gums felled on our road—this regret being mixed with astonishment, as I thought I had been given to understand that I had safeguarded these trees for some time to come … I view further felling of the trees on our road with the greatest concern. The are and have always been a constant pleasure to me as well as numerous visitors, for it is an almost unique sight to see a country road where nature’s fine trees have not been indiscriminately and ruthlessly destroyed.[2]

[1] Hans Heysen, March 1914, quoted in Thiele, p 184

[2] Hans Heysen, quoted in Thiele, p 184