Talk | Dr Claire Roberts and Lili Belle Birchall at Heide

Art historian Dr Claire Roberts and Heide curator Lili Belle Birchall will discuss the work of Ian Fairweather (1891–1974), one of the most significant twentieth-century artists to have worked in Australia. He is exceptional among modern artists for his experience of Chinese life and culture, a subject that Dr Roberts has explored in her recent book, Fairweather and China (2021).  Fairweather’s work is represented in the current Heide exhibition House of Ideas: Cynthia Reed’s Studio. During its two years of operation in the early 1930s, Cynthia Reed’s Melbourne studio provided a platform for artists and designers to meet, exhibit and sell their work and played an important role in the development of Australian modernism.