Heide Museum of Modern Art is a torch bearer for Australian modernism, but also champions contemporary Australian art – in the spirit of its founders John and Sunday Reed, patrons and collectors who fostered the local modernist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. While the focus is on Australians, international contemporary art is also exhibited.
The Museum is comprised of three core buildings – Heide I, II and III – as well as extensive gardens and a sculpture park.
In 1934, the Reeds bought and settled on the site, calling it Heide after the town of Heidelberg just across the river. Over the next decade they turned Heide into a hub for artists, writers and thinkers who shared their progressive social and cultural ideals. The Angry Penguins (including painters Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval) alternately lived, worked and played here in the 1940s.
Heide I is the Reeds' original farmstead, while Heide II is a slice of modernist architecture designed by David McGlashan in 1964, when the family outgrew their original digs.
After the Reeds passed away in 1981, the public art museum and sculpture park was established, and a larger building was built, with its zinc facade now the distinctive, recognisable face of Heide MOMA.
In addition to the three museum spaces, there is a gift shop and Café Vue.
Check out our hit-list of the best galleries in Melbourne.
