Nora Heysen with her dog sitting outside her home, Hunters Hill, Sydney

, 2000

Nora Heysen AM (b. 1911) is one of Australia's most accomplished portrait artists. Her self-portrait of 1934 was an early acquisition of the National Portrait Gallery, and can be seen hanging inside the Library space. The interior shot shows a painting from the artist's Ruth series, depicting a mighty farmgirl against the background of the Flinders Ranges. The portrait photographer Sage made these images of Heysen at the home in which she has lived for most of her life. Sage was born in Wales, and his first photographs were of Welsh miners and their families during the UK miners' strike of the late 1980s. He studied documentary photography with the Magnum photographer David Hurn, and has worked as a photojournalist for the Sydney Morning Herald.