Welcome to Hawthorn Artist Society, run by artists for artists.

For over forty years we have fostered and promoted the local artist community. Our inclusive environment, located in the Basement of the Hawthorn Arts Centre, has been a hub for hundreds of Australian artists.

Our support is diverse, from life drawing and painting to printing, sculpture, and collage. We offer term-based classes and one-off workshops run by acclaimed Australian artists. We have many tutored and untutored sessions throughout the week. These sessions include long-pose and short-pose life drawing as well as 'open studio' opportunities, En Plein Air events around metropolitan Melbourne, and periodic lectures by successful professional artists.

Additionally, we host members-only exhibitions, showcasing the talent within our artistic community. Join us in celebrating and nurturing the creativity that thrives within our vibrant artistic space on Wurundjeri land.

Find a favourite weekly session from the HAS timetable. Once you have decided on yours, you need to become a member to continue attending the studio.

We rely on the $60 annual membership fees for our continued operation.
Become a member and renew each year.

If you are at all unwell, do not attend sessions at HAS. If you have tested positive, or feel you may have COVID-19, do not come to the studio until a week after you have recovered.

Lessons from an honoured master
Yvonne Audette AM

Yvonne is widely recognized as one of Australia’s greatest abstract painters. Her paintings are in the collections of every National Art Gallery in Australia; also Tarrawarra, the University of Melbourne, Monash University and many other significant public and private collections.

Born in Sydney in 1930, Yvonne went on to study in New York in the fifties; in the greatest era of abstract expressionism. At the Art Student’s League in New York, Yvonne studied drawing under Robert Beverley Hale, the famous curator of American Painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Subsequently studying and working in Europe, Yvonne Audette established her reputation as a successful abstract painter, before returning to continue her long career in Australia. For thirty years Yvonne has taught life drawing on Saturday mornings at the Hawthorn Artist Society. Her legendary classes, based on three hours of high action, short poses have tested many outstanding life models and taught hundreds of Australian artists.

Her professionalism, dedication, skill, integrity, enormous knowledge and generosity have inspired her students for many years. We have been very privileged to have a truly great Australian artist and teacher in Hawthorn. Yvonne Audette was awarded Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Yvonne is now in her 90s.

Yvonne Audette, Vaucluse, Sydney 1968
© Lisa, Michael, Matthew and Joshua Moore. Image courtesy David Moore photography. @davidmoorephotographyofficial