In 1931 she visited Sydney with her parents, and spent two weeks studying at the Julian Ashton Art School.

[3] On 12 October 1943, Heysen became the first woman to be appointed as an Australian war artist, being granted the honorary rank of captain.

So 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 during the war".

A 1939 article in The Australian Women's Weekly ran with the headline "Girl Painter Who Won Art Prize is also Good Cook",[5] and lists three of Heysen's favourite recipes along with her strategies for achieving domestic duties and leaving time for painting.

A major retrospective exhibition of the work of daughter and father, Hans and Nora Heysen: Two Generations of Australian Art, was curated by the National Gallery of Victoria and displayed from March–July 2019.