This book celebrates the work of Hans Heysen and is timed to mark the fortieth anniversary of the artist's death. Enormously popular, Heysen is South Australia's bestknown artist. He is also recognized across the country as one of the most influential of Australian artists, one whose work was pivotal to development of Australian art and culture in the twentieth century. In addition to his will-known landscapes, the book reappraises his lesser-known work, tracing its development from his early student days painting in Europe between 1899 and 1903.

Heysen was the first artist to use eucalyptus as a persistent motif in his art, celebrating the grandeur of certain species and presenting them as symbols of heroic endurance and includes many other subjects areas, such as toilers of the land, quarries, the River Murray, the South Coast and Pewsey Vale, and also portraits and still lifes.