Author(s): Jane Hylton

Art

Ivor Hele was an artist of extraordinary discipline and power. He was also enormously prolific and completed more commissioned works than any other artist in the history of Australian art. His front-line responses to war, sketched and painted for the Australian War Memorial, the portraits that won him the Archibald prize an astonishing five times during the 1950s, his exuberant nudes (Ivor and his wife swam nude at Maslins beach long before it was fashionable or legal to do so) and his magnificent landscapes of that rugged coastline south of Adelaide - where he lived as a recluse - combine to make up a prodigious body of work. This book focuses on the non-war art in an attempt to offer a wider view of the man, his exceptional ability and his rigorous discipline. It is released to coincide with an exhibition that celebrates his life-long dedication to his art.