'“Henriette Holidays at Heide” is a “homage” to the art museum and sculpture park, just over the Yarra River from Heidelberg, that I have considered one of Melbourne’s great art and cultural treasures since first encountering it in the mid-eighties after moving south from Sydney. It is also a celebration of the vision and generosity of John and Sunday Reed and the way they welcomed those who were out of step with society of their time. In my drawing Heide welcomes a story book train full of children in the same way as the Reeds welcomed Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and other artists of their time. In recent work I have explored personal juxtapositions and, sometimes left-field, references with different parts of the Melbourne landscape I am familiar with. The last twenty-plus years in Melbourne is for me the story of growing a family and the up-and-down events that involves, and I have chosen to weave into this drawing various biographical references, as well as including art work encountered at Heide that is no longer there. Amongst these references is “A Holiday with Henriette”, by James Kruss and Lisl Stich, a story book my children often enjoyed to have read at bedtime. Henriette is a wonderful invention of a steam engine and train that sets off from the station with a full compliment of children and then departs the tracks to steam down into the meadows and other magical, peaceful places enabling the children to stop and pick flowers and chase butterflies all afternoon.' Michael Donnelly 2006
Private Collection