The Aussie ‘messenger girls’ who changed art

Nora Heysen became the first woman to win the Archibald Prize in 1938, yet the media response focused on her domestic life. This weekend, the Art Gallery of South Australia opens an exhibition highlighting Heysen and other local female artists who traveled to Europe before World War II, showcasing their portraits and still lifes that helped catalyze the modernist art movement in Australia.