Joy Hester

John and Sunday Reed organised a commemorative exhibition of Hester’s work in 1963. In 1978, a street in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm was named Hester Place in her honour. In 1981, Janine Burke, Hester’s biographer, curated the first major retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria. Hester’s life and work was the subject of a documentary, The Good Looker, in 1995. A plaque was erected in 1999 at the Box Hill Cemetery in honour of Hester’s contribution to the arts. Reviewing her work for Time in 2001, Michael Fitzgerald wrote “Forty-one years after her death, Hester’s drawings still suck the oxygen from the air, providing some of the clearest-eyed images in Australian art”. In 2018 her Love and The Lovers series of works featured in a joint exhibit with Patricia Piccinini at TarraWarra Museum of Art. Piccinini credited Hester as a major influence on her own practice; stating: “I love the way her painting, especially those with merged features, are simultaneously surreal and figurative. I am really interested in depictions of love and intimacy in my own work, so I find Hester’s approach very inspiring”.

Joy and Smith had two children, a son, Peregrine, in 1951, and a daughter, Fern, in 1954. The couple married in 1959. After a period of remission Hester suffered a relapse of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1956 and died on 4 December 1960, aged 40. Hester was laid to rest at the Box Hill Cemetery in an unmarked grave, at her behest.

The Lovers series (1956–58) were indicative of her maturing and expressive style. She also published poetry and used her drawings to illustrate her words.

Hester had two subsequent solo exhibitions in 1955 and 1956 but struggled to sell her art. She typically worked on a small scale in black ink and wash, however, Australian modernism favoured large oil paintings, like those of Nolan. Hester’s work failed to garner the same recognition her male peers received, dismissed by critics as “angst-ridden”.

By the mid 40s, Hester relinquished her interest in oil painting to concentrate solely on watercolor and inks. Her focus shifted towards the motif of the human face, specifically the expression in the eyes. Using minimal and assertive ink strokes, she rendered her figures with emotional intensity. A Frightened Woman (1945) served as a seminal point in establishing Hester’s style and media moving forward. Hester works aimed to capture the psychological horror of World War II.

Hester and Tucker married 1941. Five years later Hester gave birth to a son, Sweeney Reed (1944–1979). In 1947, when Sweeney was three, Hester was diagnosed with terminal Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Believing she had only 2 years to live, she decided to move to Sydney to live with Melbourne artist Gray Smith, and gave her son into the care of John and Sunday Reed, who subsequently adopted him. Illness impacted heavily on Hester’s work and left an indelible mark, loading it with emotional content. During this period Hester produced the drawings that became part of her notable Face, Sleep and Love series. These works were exhibited alongside Hester’s poetry in 1950 at her first solo show at the Melbourne Bookclub Gallery.

One of her most significant works from this time was Nude Study, (c. 1939–41). It was her first use of bold, fluid black line work, which is what she is known for today.

In 1938 Hester met fellow artist Albert Tucker and began living with him intermittently in East Melbourne. During the same year Hester became a founding member of the Contemporary Art Society (CAS), exhibiting with them annually. Hester met Melbourne-based art patron Sunday Reed in 1939 at the Herald Exhibition, which brought British and French artworks to Australia for the first time. The two became friends, with Reed nurturing Hester’s artistic talent. Spending much of her time at Heide with Sunday and her husband John Reed, Hester became a member of the Heide Circle. She was a contemporary of Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, Yosl Bergner and Danila Vassilieff during this period. The Heide Circle worked as an extension of the Angry Penguins magazine. Hester was the only woman to be featured in the Angry Penguins publication.

Joy St Clair Hester (21 August 1920 – 4 December 1960) was an Australian artist. She was a member of the Angry Penguins movement and the Heide Circle who played an integral role in the development of Australian Modernism. Hester is best known for her bold and expressive ink drawings. Her work was charged with a heightened awareness of mortality due to the death of her father during her childhood, the threat of war, and her personal experience with Hodgkin’s disease. Hester is most well known for the series Face, Sleep, and Love (1948–49) as well as the later works, The Lovers (1956–58).

Hester was born on the 21 August 1920 and raised in Elwood to middle-class parents Louise and Robert Hester. Robert died from a heart attack when Hester was twelve. Hester studied art from an early age and was a student at St Michael’s Grammar School from 1933 to 1937. At 17, Hester enrolled in Commercial Art at Brighton Technical School for one year before leaving to attend the National Gallery School in Melbourne. Her curriculum was based in traditional media and practice, however Hester took the opportunity to break free from formal restraints. In 1938 Hester won the Gallery School’s Drawing Head from Life prize. Taking up classes at both the Design school, and Painting and Life school gave her early recognition. Her work during this time, though bound by tradition, was concerned with shadow and tonal shading, the relationships between dark and light.

Two plays have been written about her life: Joy by Christine Croyden, and Hester by Wendy Beckett. Joy Hester’s art was included in the exhibition, Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now at the National Gallery of Australia, in 2021-2022.