Nora Heysen's 1932 self portrait features a paint palette, gifted to her by Dame Nellie Melba. (Supplied: National Gallery of Australia)"It was really rather terrifying," he told RN in 2019.

Nora Heysen’s significance as an official war artist meant that she was a dominant figure in the Australian War Memorial’s 1994 exhibition of women war artists.

But Heysen continued to do things equally as well, in 1943 becoming the first female war correspondent. The appointment took her to New Guinea, Lae, Finchhafen, Morotai and Borneo.

When Nora Heysen became the first woman to win the Archibald Prize in 1938, The Australian Women’s Weekly celebrated by photographing her in her kitchen and asking for her favourite recipes ...

In this short video, we explore the history of Nora Heysen, the Australian artist who was the first woman to win the Archibald Prize. Heysen was a pioneering artist who fought discrimination and ...