Heide Museum of Modern Art by Susan Miles

An old friend is renewed with a new gallery, a precious collection and a calendar of enticing new exhibits.

Heide Museum is a familiar old friend to many Melbournians. It is where we visited as children with our families to enjoy a picnic in the grounds, as students to explore the themes of modern art in the galleries, and as adults it provided an ideal location to bring visiting friends for a stroll through the sculpture park and lunch in the cafe. But it should be a friendship that is renewed more regularly, particularly with the latest additions.

History of Heide

Heide didn’t start its life as a museum. When John and Sunday Reed acquired the property for their home in the 1930’s it was a sprawling dairy farm, a history that is remembered in the sculpture ‘Cows’, several lifelike creations in corrugated iron that graze continuously in the Heide grounds.

The original home was renovated by the artistic Sunday Reed to reflect a classic French provincial farmhouse and soon became a lively centre for the emerging artistic movement of the era, modernism. Artists such as Neil Douglas, Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan were frequent visitors, with Tucker creating images from his iconic ‘Ned Kelly’ series in the farmhouse dining room.

The farmhouse, now known as Heide I, houses the extensive library and archives created by the Reeds and is now a feature of the newly established ‘History of Heide’ tour.

In the 1960’s the Reed’s commissioned architect David McGlashan to build a ‘gallery for living’, a home of tall ceilings, open spaces, no doors and wall size windows to take in views of the picturesque grounds. Modernist in design, Heide II is a home for art with its weathered exterior designed to blend into its rural environment and is now the location for contemporary modernism exhibits.

Becoming a public gallery in the early 1980’s, Heide has now long been a fixture of Melbourne’s artistic enjoyment.

Heide Now

Heide III is the new era of Heide. Opening in mid 2006, this gallery space has been designed in the same spirit of the Reeds original vision. Heide III is open and expansive, thus allowing for a dynamic array of installation art and exhibits to be displayed. The gallery includes an exclusive space for showcasing the latest interpretations of modernism. The highlight of Heide III is the ‘Albert and Barbara Tucker Gallery’. Thanks to an extraordinary gift of over 200 works, plus books and archives of Albert Tucker, Heide now has both the setting and the resources to explore the art, the era and the history of this great Australian artist.

Heide in the future

This new era of an old friend is set to continue. With three glorious galleries now making up Heide, plans are afoot to curate new shows that tie together all three exhibition spaces.

For now it is pure pleasure to simply follow the sculpture trail through the grounds, stroll through the colorful and aromatic kitchen garden and explore the engaging exhibits on show in the stunning galleries.

Information - Heide Museum of Modern Art is located at 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen,, Victoria (melway ref: 32 E5).
-For information on exhibits, events and tours refer to www.heide.com.au or email: info@heide.com.au