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

Study for Approaching storm with bushfire haze 1912
pen and ink, ink wash on grey paper
Frame 44.0 (h) x 59.5 (w) x 4.0 (d) cm
Bequest of the artist 1971, Art Gallery of South Australia

Hans Heysen drew inspiration from the natural world. This, and his strict adherence to a daily drawing practice saw him sketch en plein air frequently … He sketched outdoors in a range of media, from simple, searching line drawings in pencil, to more refined black chalk studies on blue paper. Heysen’s drawings were the foundation on which he built his paintings, which were characterised by carefully constructed compositions.

… The small rapid sketch was probably made from life during the bushfires of February 1912 and depicts the landscape near Heysen’s home in the Adelaide Hills[1]. Heysen appears to have worked in great haste to fix the view before him, exploiting the expressive potential of pen and ink and wash to convey the dramatic atmospheric conditions of the scene. His energetic hatching and cross-hatching marks and ink wash model the forms of nature and suggest volume with the most economic of means. The subject evidently fascinated Heysen and he developed it into a small oil-painting sketch, which was to serve as a study for a larger canvas that he later planned to paint.[2]

[1] Julie Robinson first proposed this chronology in 1992. My essay on these two drawings in indebted to her in-depth analysis of the two drawings (Julie Robinson, Hans Heysen: the creative journey, Art Gallery Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1992, p 9

[2] The pen and ink first Study for Approaching storm with bushfire haze has been folded into eight sections to create a grid, which Heysen may have used to transfer the composition onto the canvas to produce the oil sketch (Robinson, p 9)

© Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2008
Andrews, Hans Heysen, exhibition book, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2008, p 60