Petrel Cove - South Australia by Avril Thomas Pillow

This scene was once painted by Hans Heysen. Avril Thomas tried to get into the very spot where he may have sat to paint the picture.For two weeks in August 1925, after the death of their third daughter, Heysen and his family visited the resort town of Victor Harbor, on the Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide. Here, he painted the watercolour Petrel Cove. Sitting on the grass of the saddle of The Bluff at Rosetta Head Heysen painted this winter landscape looking south-west across Petrel Cove towards King Head and Newland Head. Writing to Lionel Lindsay in late 1925 he enthused: ‘You would love the grandeur of this coastline, could you but see it, with something barren and primitive in the contour of the land’. Avril Thomas is better kn...