WAAAF cook (Corporal Joan Whipp)

Nora Heysen was the first woman to be appointed an official war artist in Australia. Restless to use her artistic skills to assist her country, she petitioned for her appointment and was finally sent in 1943 to cover the activities of the women’s auxiliary services. “I was lent around to all the Services; the air force, the navy and the army, to depict the women working at everything they did” she recalled.

Among Heysen’s most striking works from the Second World War are her single portraits of women. Covering the activities of those hovering at the edges of wartime, they present arresting images of a modern, independent woman, who had left the home to assist the war effort. In this painting, Corporal Joan Beatrice Whipp gazes candidly at the viewer, standing arms folded in her mess kitchen. Whipp served as a cook in the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force in Cairns, Queensland.