Jean Bellette (1909-1991) born in Hobart, was educated at the Hobart Technical College and at the JAAS, Sydney in the 1930s. She married the art critic Paul Haefliger in 1939 and travelled to Europe to study at the Central School of Art and the Westminster School of Art in London. Bellette’s body of work reflects the Neo-Classic aesthetics she discovered while studying in London and upon her return to Sydney, she won the Sulman Prize in 1942 and 1944. With her husband, Bellette was a major figure in the Sydney art scene and founded the Sydney Art Group in addition to writing for Art in Australia and teaching at ESTC.

In 1958, the year she won the Carillon City Festival Prize, Bellette moved to Majorca with Haefliger where she lived until her death in 1991. She is represented in the majority of state and regional galleries in Australia and was the subject of a retrospective exhibition in 2005 organised by the NTSHEG and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.