Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Victoria

This art gallery was nothing like any I’ve ever visited. Away from Melbourne in the Yarra Valley, the gallery was set in a bush landscape where giant gum trees reared over buildings. A path led past a derrick house where Sydney Nolan once stored many of his paintings. At the old farmhouse, we wandered through the rooms where the Reed family once lived. In the 1960s they built a unique architectural dream house. Now, both buildings form separate parts of the main gallery.

Shack where Sydney Nolan once stored his paintings, Heidi Grounds, Victoria

To my delight, on the day we visited, there was an Arthur Boyd exhibition. I have always admired his Shoalhaven and Bride Series and examples of both these series of paintings were on display.

From Arthur Boyd’s Bride Series charged with a message of racial prejudice against Aborigines, Heidi Gallery, Victoria

Thanks to the Reed family who supported Australian artists as far back as the 1930s, this gallery had and still has a lot worth seeing.

The Reed’s architecturally designed home, now a museum. Loved how the shower had a glass panel to look out at the bush.