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

Pewsey Vale 1947
watercolour on paper
31.8 (h) x 38.8 (w) cm
Gift of Miss Eva Waite 1954, Art Gallery of South Australia

Heysen made a number of paintings depicting Pewsey Vale, such as Folding Hills 1933 and Pewsey Vale 1947. The subject was a pastoral property in the Barossa Ranges. Here, he captured the large sky over the landscape, filled with clouds, and captured the expressive power of the sky and its impact on the mood of the scene.

When interviewed towards the end of his life, Heysen discussed his attitude to the sky. He said ‘Australian painters generally have paid too little attention to the sky. The landscape painter has to realize that it is not something secondary, like a backdrop, but that it is above you, at the sides of you, and all around. It curves from the horizon to the zenith. The moment you forget this you tend to make it like a backdrop, or something tacked on the top’.[1]

[1] Colin Thiele, Heysen of Hahndorf, Adelaide: Rigby, 1968, p 312