Thank you Melbourne for a wonderful weekend.
Friday 25, Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September
Chandelier Room, Hawthorn Arts Centre
This year’s Spring Salon exhibition surpassed all our expectations as the Chandelier room in the Hawthorn Arts Centre was transformed into a magnificent gallery, showcasing the beautiful artwork of the members of Hawthorn Artist Society over the grand final weekend.
Opening night was buzzing with artists, their families, friends and lovers of art, all celebrating the depth of creativity and talent of our exhibitors and enjoying the beautiful sense of community that everyone in our Society works so hard to foster.
We were privileged to have Wes Gault, the Mayor of Boroondara, open the exhibition for us and John Pesutto, Member for Hawthorn, to present our inaugural prizes. Our thanks go to the curatorial team at the Hawthorn Town Hall Gallery who judged those prizes for us.
HAS First Prize $500
Reclining portrait
KIERAN HINDS
HAS Second Prize $300
Sir pounce-a-lot
NIC KIRKMAN
HAS Best Representational Artwork $200
Pieman River Corinna
LIBBI BENNISON
HAS Best Non-Figurative Artwork $200
The Tropical Garden #5
CARSTEN FREDERIKSEN
Portrait Prize $200
Bea
JENN HUANG
Another inaugural prize, the HAS portrait prize, was judged by our talented Portrait artist of the year contestants from the 2025 and 2026 series. Many thanks to Eliza Cottonwood, Tony Ericson, Eric Chin, David MacLeod and Liz Gridley for adjudicating for us. That we have had 5 members of our society amoungst the competitors shows the depth of talent we have at HAS.
People’s choice prize
Whisperings
HELEN HEYWOOD
Our established People’s Choice Award went to HELEN HEYWOOD for Whisperings. A $200 cash prize, a $200 prize voucher from Eckersleys Art Store in Hawthorn and a $200 prize voucher from Studio Craft Custom Picture Framers. Many thanks to our sponsors for their continuing support of the Spring Salon and for the assistance they provide to our artists throughout the year. If you’re passing by, pop in and say hello. They will be happy to help you with any products or services you need.
Eckersleys have generously provided discount vouchers which will be distributed to our exhibitors and volunteers. Please contact us if you don’t receive your voucher and we’ll make sure we get one to you.
Honorable mentions to:
Dan by Joe Whyte
Amongst the Bamboo by Andrew White
Jean Luc as Henry V111 by Lisa Banks
Portrait - man by Yaxuan Yu
The exhibition gives our artists the chance to show their best work in beautiful surroundings. Opening night is a fabulous party for all members to enjoy and gives everyone a chance to meet other artists across the different sessions running at HAS.
Loves seeing artists meet each other not only at the exhibition but also in their capacity as volunteers. The more connected the artists are, the more our community will thrive.
Enjoys enormously those little conversations that get you thinking. This year’s question was posed by someone considering taking up art for the first time - “why do you paint?” A group of artists gave serious consideration to this - it's a really good question and it gave rise to really interesting answers.
Kirsten Tarry-Smith
Our thanks to
As always, a huge thank you to our exhibiting artists. Many visitors commented on the diversity, talent and creativity of the artwork on display. It was a delight to see the huge range of work that our artists have been working on, all assembled in one room. The exhibition wouldn’t be possible without the assistance of the dedicated band of volunteers who kindly gave up their time to do the myriad of tasks needed to get a show of this size up and running. This year we even had some volunteers who had never stepped foot inside HAS give us a hand. Others volunteer every year, whether or not they have submitted any artwork. We are deeply grateful to each and every one of them - this show couldn’t happen without you. (If your name isn't listed below, please know that it wasn’t that your help wasn’t appreciated, but that our record keeping might have let us down).
Our volunteers
Adele Fisher
Adeline Ramos
Alan Mak
Ali Memon
Amanda Lazar
Amanda Lugg
Anita Mathews
Ann Ramsdale
Anna Cooke
Bill Henning
Bill Wood
Charlotte Molloy
Chelsea Tobin
Chris Stamate
Christine Stamate
Christine Sender
Daniel Sender
David MacLeod
Diana Huggins
Domenic Bozzone
Eliza Cottonwood
Eloise Bullard
Eric Chin
Glenda Brigham
Graham Hubbard
Heidi Niklas
Irene Henning
Jane-Frances Tannock
Jim Moody
Johan Westerbeek
John HurleyKath Leong
Ken Wight
Kirsten Tarry-Smith
Kristy Matthies
Louise Lee
Lucinda O’NeillLyn Stephens
Madeleine Wilshire
Marg Picken
Mark Natoli
Mark Poulier
Maya Haddad
Mills Rigazzi
Nic Kirkman
Ophelia Thanchanok
Paula Reade
Penny Parkinson
Peter Howie
Peter Tims
Ria Tims
Rita Sleep
Sadie Lamb
Shwetha Venka
Sophia Borshch
Sophie Freshwater
Susan Fairley
Terry Griffin
Tony Ericson
Traecey Bremner
Vija Gaidelis
Warwick Manderson
Zimo Zhu
A special shout out to Nic Kirkman who curated the panels so beautifully - it’s a task that takes many hours and sleepless nights. To Eliza Cottonwood who put in a big effort to set up our trial Works on Paper rack and to our Society Secretary, David MacLeod who put in a super human effort to make this year’s Spring Salon such an organised success.
Our gratitude goes to the HAS Committee who work tirelessly throughout the year, to not only put on events such as this, but who also keep HAS running smoothly, financially viable and expanding to meet the needs of our artists.
The City of Boroondara and the Hawthorn Arts Centre have been great supporters of this event, via a generous grant. Without their support our Society wouldn’t be able to offer what we do to look after our artists and to promote visual arts in Boroondara.
Our thanks goes to the Essential Events staff and the staff at Hawthorn Arts Centre who looked after us so well during the event. The Hawthorn Arts Centre Gallery staff kindly lent us some of their display equipment and we thank them for their generosity.
Our extra special thanks to Kirsten Tarry-Smith. Our Vice-President played a critical role in leading and coordinating the teams of volunteers who put the exhibition together and helped run the event over the weekend. It was a huge contribution, achieved with hours and hours of charm, persuasion, organisation and dedication. We are extremely grateful for everything Kirsten put into making the exhibition happen.