With the advent of modernism the appearance and traditions of the portrait underwent a transformation. Strict representation was rejected by the avant-garde and likenesses came to be considered more holistically; ideas and emotions, form and colour could be as important as the identifying characteristics of the protagonist.
For the artists associated with Heide, painting portraits went hand in hand with their progressive explorations of subject and style undertaken in the 1940s. The portraits painted by Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester, John Perceval, Arthur Boyd and Danila Vassilieff were not commissioned, but provided a means for testing ideas and documenting allegiances.
This exhibition comprises over fifty portraits and self-portraits by and of the artists and associates of the Heide circle during the development of modernism in Australia. It also considers the wider context of the main participants in this group, and the role played by other gathering places and creative hubs such as the Boyd’s Murrumbeena Pottery and the Kismet Library in Fitzroy.
