STREET SCENE II, c.1941
JOY HESTER
pen, ink and pencil on paper
20.0 x 24.5 cm (sheet)
signed with estate stamp upper left: Joy Hester
The Estate of Sweeney Reed, Melbourne
Peter Nahum, London
Sotheby's, Melbourne, 27 September 1992, lot 212
Private collection, Melbourne
Burke, J., Joy Hester, Greenhouse, Melbourne, 1983, p. 53
Hester did a series of street scenes in the early Forties that have striking compositional similarities: usually of two women standing together in the street. She shared this interest in urban subjects with a number of her contemporaries - Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan, Noel Counihan and Harry de Hartog. These artists had been influenced, in turn, by the Russian painter Danila Vassilieff and the Viennese-born Jewish artist Yosl Bergner. Both had arrived in Melbourne in 1937.'
Excerpt from Burke, J., Joy Hester, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1981, p. 22