Heide Museum of Modern Art

Sunday's Kitchen

Food & Living at Heide

16 March - 17 October 2010

Venue: Heide I

Curator: Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan

This exhibition explores life behind-the-scenes at Heide, the celebrated haven for progressive modernist artist and writers. Heide was the home and personal Eden of John and Sunday Reed, two of Australia's most significant art benefactors. Settling on the fifteen acre property in 1935, the Reeds transformed it from a run-down dairy farm into a fertile creative space. They extended their hospitality and resources to now-famous artists such as Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Charles Blackman and developed a culture of collaboration, eclecticism and idealism which helped change the course of Australian art.

At the centre of activity was Sunday Reed, a passionate cook and gardener, who ensured the artists she championed received sustenance for the body, not just the mind. Drawing on her experiences in the south of France, she established two abundant kitchen gardens and developed a ‘garden to table’ approach to cooking, enhanced by fresh milk, cream, butter and eggs all produced at Heide. This emphasis on subsistence living, coupled with a self-styled domestic aesthetic, became an inspirational model for those in the Reeds’ wider circle.

Bringing together photographs, archival material, recipes and works from the Heide Museum collection and Reeds’ personal effects, the exhibition looks in detail at day-to-day life at Heide between 1935–81. It marks the launch of a new book, Sunday’s Kitchen: Food and Living at Heide, by Heide curators Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan, published by Heide, the State Library of Victoria, and The Miegunyah Press, an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing. The book is available for sale at the Heide Store for $49.99. The Age, A2 Editor Sally Heath is growing and cooking her way through the book, read her latest blog at A Season of Sunday's at Heide.