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Wild Things: The Lives and Loves of John and Sunday Reed

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The Heide Circle is synonymous with the modernist art movement in Australia and, without John and Sunday Reed, there would be no Heide Circle. The married pair, both from establishment families, purchased a dairy farm in Bulleen in 1934 that became the centre for the Australian mid-century avant-garde – and home to several of the giants of Australian modernism including Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Joy Hester.

The property, which today houses the celebrated Heide Museum of Modern Art, was not just a place of artistic expression but also of radical political thinking and sexual experimentation. The complex romantic entanglements of the Heide Circle in the 1940s are legendary.

A new book on John and Sunday Reed, Modern Love, re-examines the legacy of these two towering figures in Australian modernism. Join its authors, Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan – both curators at Heide Museum of Modern Art – as they share their new insights on the loves and lives of this highly unorthodox Australian couple. Hosted by Georgia Moodie.

Featuring

Georgia Moodie

Georgia Moodie is a reporter and producer on Books and Arts, ABC Radio National. 

Kendrah Morgan

Kendrah Morgan has been a curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne since 2003. Her previous position was Assistant Curator, New Zealand and International Art, at Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand, from 1998–2002. Before then she worked in the commercial gallery sector and lectured in art h... Read more

Lesley Harding

Lesley Harding joined Heide Museum of Modern Art as curator in 2005. She has held curatorial positions at the Arts Centre, Melbourne and National Art School, Sydney, and regularly publishes and lectures on modernist and contemporary Australian art. Her work has appeared in Art and Australia, Art Mon... Read more

Location

The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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The Wheeler Centre acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Centre stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their Elders, past and present, as the custodians of the world’s oldest continuous living culture.