Joy Hester Essay examples

Submitted By havierbrown
Words: 718
Pages: 3
Open Document
JOY HESTER

Joy St Clair Hester 1920-1960, artist, was born on 21 August 1920 at Elsternwick, Melbourne. Educated at St Michael's Church of England Girls' Grammar School, St Kilda, in 1936 Joy completed one year of an art-and-crafts course at Brighton Technical School. At the National Gallery schools she won first prize for drawing a head from life. The course was conservative and she abandoned it, preferring to attend life-drawing classes at the Victorian Artists Society, East Melbourne. A founding member of the Contemporary Art Society in 1938, she first exhibited in its inaugural exhibition in the following year. The C.A.S. was to remain her only venue for showing work until she held her first solo exhibition at the Melbourne Book Club Gallery in 1950. In January 1941 at All Saints Church, Greensborough, she married with Anglican rites a fellow artist Albert Lee Tucker.
Between 1938 and 1947 Hester was part of a stimulating and innovative circle of painters among them Sir Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval which was colloquially known as the 'Angry Penguins', after the art and literary magazine of the same name published by John Reed and Max Harris. She was the only woman artist in the group. It met regularly at Heide, the home of the art patrons John and Sunday Reed. Sunday was Hester's closest friend, encouraging her work, supporting her financially and later adopting her first son Sweeney.
Hester drew and rarely painted, favouring the media of brush and ink. It was an unusual choice, one that set her apart from her contemporaries and one that she developed with great skill through her brief career. If it determined her style and method, it also meant that during her lifetime her art received little attention. Drawing was not valued as highly as oil painting and was seen as preparatory to the finished work of art. Further, Hester's method of working sitting on the floor in company and rapidly producing her drawings meant that she was viewed as a casual rather than a serious artist.
She chose the human face as her motif, focussing on the eyes. Intense emotions and psychological states were registered with quick, sure, expressionist strokes. Her portraits of friends and family were incisive, while the 'Gethsemane' series concentrated on upward-gazing, hallucinatory heads. Her immediate influences included German Expressionism, the Russian emigrant painter Danila Vassilieff, and Picasso. She was also directly influenced by the newsreels shown in 1945 of Nazi concentration camps. Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and Judith Wright were her favourite poets. An important early series, 'From An Incredible Night Dream' was inspired by Jean Cocteau's Opium.
In 1947 Hester was diagnosed as having Hodgkin's disease and given a short time to live. She left her husband and young son, and moved to Sydney with Gray Smith. In the next two years she produced some of her
Show More

Related Documents: Joy Hester Essay examples

Hester Prynne's Life In 'The Scarlet Letter' By Nathaniel Hawthorne

of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates the constant questioning Hester Prynne faces of her own life. The narrator glimpses into the thoughts of Hester Prynne when she questions “was existence worth accepting, even to the happiest among them” (Hawthorne). Hester Prynne questions whether living a troubled life was even worth it even to the happiest of women. The ultimate effect of this quote is Hester contemplating whether death is a better alternative than living her life, demonstrating…

Words 430 - Pages 2

Hester Prynne In Scarlet Letter

Hester Prynne, the main character in the novel, is an example of a romantic associated with imagination. When Hester is first introduced in the novel she shows these romantic characteristics, she “was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance…her beauty shone out.” People expected Hester to look awful and sad as she exits the prison, but she looks the opposite. Continuously, during Hester’s public humiliation, she would be expected to become frustrated or make a commotion during her public humiliation…

Words 878 - Pages 4

Symbolism Of The Forest In The Scarlet Letter

portrays the once foreign area as a place of freedom for Hester. In the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, the narrator talks about Hester’s house and it’s proximity to the forest. Hester’s house was located between the strict Puritan town and the unknown forest. To the villagers in Boston, Hester was an ignominy because of the immoral sins she had committed. Like the forest compared to the Puritan town, Hester was unorthodox. In Chapter IV, Hester connected the forest and Satan when she said, "Art thou…

Words 603 - Pages 3

Scarlet Letter Pearl Quotes

what makes Dimmesdale confess, she brings Hester and Dimmesdale together, and she is there to help Hester live with her sin. Pearl was an extremely important part of the forest scene between Dimmesdale, Hester, and herself because she is what really made Dimmesdale realize he needed to change. “Through her act of rejection she has communicated to him the necessity for public declaration of sin as a prerequisite…

Words 737 - Pages 3

Scarlet Letter Forest Symbolism

example the forest, sunshine and water. Symbols of things would be the scarlet letter itself and the symbols of places would be like the scaffold. Pearl is also one of the heavily symbolized characters in the book. One important part of the book is when Hester Prynne speaks to Dimmesdale about their predicament which takes place in the forest.Throughout the novel, it becomes very apparent that there is a difference between the forest and the town. The forest is described as a dismal, gloomy place that is…

Words 924 - Pages 4

Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

When Dimmesdale appears, his aura seemed more energetic to Pearl, as if he were a different person compared to the last time they met in the forest. Hester shows no public interaction with Dimmesdale, and tells Pearl to be quiet towards Dimmesdale. Hester does this because she feels the need to keep her love a secret. But this again leads up to lying to hide sin, which did not work the first time she did it. When Hawthorne describes the scene where Pearl is talking to Mistress Hibbins curiously about…

Words 444 - Pages 2

How Does Hester Prynne Change In The Scarlet Letter

take control of the outcome of their life and decide what it is that they should be doing. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne makes choices that further develop and change her as a character, and has to face the consequences of those choices. While her husband, Roger Prynne, is believed to be dead and gone for a lengthy period of time, Hester has a relationship out of wedlock with the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. Although it isn’t believed by her to be wrong due to the…

Words 1451 - Pages 6

Hester Prynne In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'

the town sentenced Hester Prynne to shame for life. Through Hester’s work for the community, Pearl’s kiss, and Dimmesdale and Hester’s gravestone, Hawthorne proves that forgiveness doesn’t come immediately; one must always try to earn it with effort and kindness. Hester’s work for the community, Pearl’s kiss, and Dimmesdale and Hester’s gravestone, Body Paragraph One Through Hester’s work for the community she has changed the meaning of the scarlet “A” to the community. Hester has changed in the…

Words 1673 - Pages 7

The Scarlet Letter Prompt 1 Essay

Scarlet Letter Chapter 5, “Hester at Her Needle” Prompt 1 Hester Prynne struggles to find the true purpose of her life in New England. She is torn between the fact that she is either there because of her guilt and sin, or because of her love for Dimmesdale. Hawthorne emphasizes Hester's inner turmoil through the use of rhetorical devices such as figurative language, tone and diction. Hester Prynne at first believes that the reason for her remaining in New England was because of her guilty conscience…

Words 679 - Pages 3

Chillingworth In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

them all. Even Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin could not compare to Chillingworth’s. Chillingworth sold his soul to the Black Man and destroyed another soul for his on revenge. Roger Chillingworth sold his soul to the Black Man. Many times throughout the Scarlet Letter Hawthorne refers to the Black Man and Chillingworth together. Pearl even calls Chillingworth the Black Man upon seeing him, “Come away, Mother! Come away, or yonder old Black Man will catch you!...” Later when Hester speaks to Chillingworth…

Words 454 - Pages 2