Heysen, Sir Hans (1877-1968), a German-born Australian artist, became popular for his landscape paintings, mainly water colors. Heysen’s favorite subject was the Australian countryside, especially in the northern part of the Flinders Ranges, in South Australia. He also painted much of the country round his home town of Hahndorf, in the Mount Lofty Range. Heysen won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting nine times. The Art Gallery of New South Wales awards the Wynne Prize annually to what its judges consider the best landscape painting of Australian scenery, or the best example of figure sculpture by an Australian artist. Many of Heysen’s paintings evoke the country’s towering gum (eucalyptus) trees.
Ernst Hans Franz Heysen was born on Oct. 7, 1877, in Hamburg, Germany. He immigrated to Australia with his parents at the age of 6. Heysen studied painting at the Adelaide School of Arts and also studied in France and Italy. Heysen was knighted in 1959. He died on July 2, 1968.
