Ivor Hele was born on June 13, 1912 in Adelaide, Australia. At the age of 15, after having shown considerable talent in art classes, Ivor Hele left Australia to travel to Paris via Italy and resume his artistic training among European ateliers. In Europe he studied casts, anatomy, the figure in life classes, learning to draw and paint form and light. He returned several years later, suitcase crammed with art books and drawings, having considerably improved his art practice. Upon returning to Adelaide, he set up a studio and began creating artworks for exhibitions and art prizes. He was successful at a young age, winning several art shows and establishing himself. After several exhibitions he chose not to exhibit commercially again, deciding to sell his work solely to commissioners and collectors.
Hele enlisted in the armed forces in June 1940 and left for North Africa in Nov, in 1941 he was appointed official war artist. Hele spent a year at the frontlines in the North African campaign from 1941-42 and 5 months in the Korean War and his grimly realistic paintings are among the most impressive of any done during those conflicts.
What can be said of the emotional impact witnessing, and recording a brutal war had on the artist? The conditions at war were tremendous, the temperate conditions of the desert and jungle and the struggle against an enemy. The mountainous brutal deaths of soldiers are seen in his paintings, among scenes of men around mortar and portraits of commanders. He spent the next year with troops from the 6th Australian Division AIF in North Africa and returned to his studio in South Australia in 1942 to complete a series of paintings of their actions then to New Guinea.
“The war artist has had to contend not only with enemy action but also with adverse natural conditions. In the Middle East he had to endure extremes of heat and cold, and sandstorms. In New Guinea he has encountered completely different conditions - tropical storms, mud and swamps and rain forests. The vast open spaces of the North African desert have been replaced by tracks through dense jungle and kunai grass. In the Middle East the artist did at least enjoy the advantage of transport. In New Guinea he has been forced to accompany the troops usually on foot, carrying not only the same equipment, clothing, arms and operational rations as the fighting troops but also his sketching outfit in addition. Like the fighting troops he has to ward off malaria, scrub-typhus, tinea, tropical sores, and dermatitis; to sleep out not for one night but for many in rain and mud and to live for days at a time in wet clothes. Fresh food is often scarce. These conditions, I suggest, must be allowed for when the work of the artists is judged. The Army, which knows the conditions with which they have to contend, has a profound admiration for what they had done and are doing.”
' From Exhibition of New Guinea Pictures by Ivor Hele'
After enduring emotional ordeals during the war, and dealing with a divorce and re marriage, plus being a public figure because of his Archibald success, Ivor Hele became a recluse. Upon returning to Australia from his war expeditions, he worked as a portrait painter, painting notable politicians and dignitaries, who traveled to his beach cottage to sit for him. He also produced a substantial amount of private work of his wife, who modeled for him daily.
Ivor Hele is an artist of form, interested in the curves of the body and the tones of multilayered war scenes, figures receding in depth in dusty deserts. Ivor Hele created a significant body of work, he was prolific overseas and prolific upon returning. He worked quickly with sketching materials, creating drawings with pen and ink, charcoal, pencil and conte.
Ivor Hele’s art is a triumph of the human spirit over appalling conditions, an artist who showed bravery and produced art in appalling conditions. It is a testament to the power of the artist, that a painting can reproduce the horrors and emotions of a war, and create challenging work against adversity. Ivor Hele artworks remain to document a war better that no written record could ever accomplish a visual reminder of bravery and loss.
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