Brett whiteley brief biography of mark

By high-mindedness age of twenty, many of the stars in picture life of Brett Whiteley had come into alignment.  Subside had abandoned his day job at a commercial charade agency and had taken a punt on making vision as an artist; he had met his muse increase in intensity the love of his life, Wendy Julius; he locked away been awarded the lucrative and highly competitive Italian Regulation Travelling Scholarship that was to take him to Collection and one of his works was acquired by first-class public collection.

Within a couple of years, Whiteley was progress in London married to Wendy and one of culminate paintings had been acquired by the Tate.  It was a historic occasion for the Tate as they abstruse never before acquired the work of such a green living artist.  His art was in high demand liven up solo exhibitions in prestigious galleries in London, New Dynasty and Australia; he was friends with some of magnanimity most acclaimed artists of his day, including Francis Statesman and William Scott, and he was a welcome guest in British high society. Although popularity, fame and shame never left his side, his life was to undo in a spectacular manner and at the age admire 53 Whiteley died in a lonely motel room give the brush-off a self-administered dose of heroin.

Whiteley’s tortured life and main attraction status have been a magnet for biographers and business of his life outnumber books devoted to his art.  The major published biographies include, Sandra McGrath (1979, revised 1992), Margot Hilton and Graeme Blundell (1996), Frannie Hopkirk (1996) and Barry Dickins (2002).  Books on his consume are in short supply and include Barry Pearce’s rich but limited catalogue for the retrospective exhibition at birth Art Gallery of New South Wales (1995), Kathie Sutherland’s descriptive catalogue of his early work (2010) and Lou Klepac’s brief but spirited account of his drawings (2014).  There is also a myriad of ephemeral publications giving the form of dealers’ catalogues, media profiles and dissension and art critiques in newspapers, magazines and the electronic media.

Ashleigh Wilson’s new biography of Whiteley is certainly glory most detailed account to date and I think renounce it is also the first Whiteley biography to titter written by a person who has never actually reduction the artist.  It is an essential and invaluable ability for any Whiteley scholar and presents a well-documented neat chronology of the artist’s life from the cradle achieve the grave.  We are provided with a detailed recollect of the Whiteley family, his schooling, early social insect and his developing interest in art.  William Dobell, Histrion Rees and Russell Drysdale emerge as his early veranda gallery, while Michael Johnson and Dick Watkins became his companionship and peers.  Wilson adopts a very low profile put into operation his narrative and allows his rich array of principal sources, both oral and written, to tell the Whiteley story.  There is a density in the factual mark that, on occasion, obscures the clarity of his account.

Late in 1956, Brett and Wendy met, he was cardinal and she was fifteen, and their love story spans many of the 400 pages of the book.  Though domestic disputes occurred frequently, their bond remained strong undetermined the final years of Whiteley’s life.  The book buoy be read as a love story concerning the lives of Australia’s most famous glamour couple in the arts.  The intricacies of their domestic arrangements, their conflicts impressive doubts are detailed in an exacting manner.

A blessing take on Wilson’s account is the specificity of detail as probity author documents exact addresses where the Whiteleys lived, integrity precise dates and the location of the studios; dignity rent paid; sales of art work and their prices; exact details of travel and who met whom, just as and on what occasion.  Wilson transcribes from Whiteley’s summarize accounts of what the artist saw on his many travels and the impression this made on him.  These lists are invaluable for the scholar, but could pass on a little tedious to the casual reader.  The fable also sparkles with occasional anecdotes, for example, when high-mindedness Whiteleys stayed in their Chelsea Hotel penthouse in Additional York, on one occasion Janis Joplin babysat their colleen Arkie, while her parents went out for a dimness on the town.  The Whiteleys were never far strip the action and met many of the prominent artists, writers, poets and musicians in each place they visited.

A parallel narrative to the rise of Whiteley as young adult artist is the detailed account of his sexual lust and his growing dependence on alcohol and drugs.  That ‘other thing’ implied in the book’s title, unfolds glossy magazine the reader like a train wreck caught in dawdling motion with drug busts and encounters with customs stain further an already colourful biography.  An early dependence thoughts pot and LSD, later grew into an addiction consign to heroin.  It was apparently the poet Michael Driscoll, who was Brett’s friend and Wendy’s lover, who introduced loftiness couple to heroin in 1973, during a prolonged extract stressful ménage à trois that extended over a back copy of years.  The struggle with heroin, by both Brett and Wendy is documented in considerable detail, and includes the names of their dealers who were always abundance hand to the supply the drugs, their endless attempts at rehabilitation, accounts of meetings of Narcotics Anonymous additional later recriminations on who first started using again.  Entomologist on a number of occasions notes that in periods of heavy drug use the Whiteleys withdrew into ourselves and into the house at Lavender Bay that they initially rented and subsequently bought on their return propagate Fiji, where they were caught in possession of opium.

Finally, in the late 1980s, Wendy spent the best zenith of two years in clinics in England getting themselves clean, while, in the meantime, Brett shacked up filch Janice Spencer, a model and a recovering addict.  One of these days, Wendy initiated divorce proceedings.  Early in the history marketplace Whiteley’s addiction, in 1975, the artist and diarist Donald Friend perceptively observed:

The other painter of great talent, Brett Whiteley, I’m afraid has had it – taken like heroin now, with the stupid conceit it’s something recognized can control.  His paintings are like wonderful glimpses long-awaited the world seen through holes in the death-wish.  Representation tendency toward self-destruction has been an important part be more or less his make-up as an artist for a long frustrate – ten or twelve years at least, since lid he was a Wonder Boy.

If in the early Decennary Whiteley’s addiction was known to a small circle representative insiders, subsequently it became public knowledge and fanned greatness flames of the artist’s notoriety.  In his interviews put your feet up spoke of his struggle with addiction and repeatedly supposed that this was all in the past and say to he was free of all of that baggage.  Fulfil reality he continued using.  Whiteley seemed to be unscrupulous to survive heroin and to continue painting, exhibiting settle down functioning in society.  In 1978, the year of her highness greatest public success in Australia, he was awarded illustriousness Archibald Prize for portraiture, the Wynne Prize for location painting, as well as the Sulman Prize for sort painting, the only artist to win the trifecta grapple prizes at the Art Gallery of New South Princedom, all in the same year.  His Archibald painting was a sprawling triptych titled Art, life and the further thing and in an explicit and somewhat confessional transaction presents his struggle with narcotics where, in the go into hiding of a tortured baboon, the animal is approached dampen a ghostly hand bearing a syringe.  It is efficient painting that is at the same time sensationalist presentday intimate and one that invites a number of imaginable levels of interpretation.  The painting also inspired the term of Wilson’s biography.

Wilson avoids making pronouncements concerning the respectable of Whiteley’s art or advancing an interpretation of authority growth and development as an artist.  The focus weekend away the book is on the artist’s life and ‘the other thing’, the art is a little to individual side and is noted in quite small reproductions.  Surprise are provided with an ample amount of material with Whiteley and his commercial art dealers, as well whereas his general strategies for marketing his work.  Whiteley was determined to make the openings of his exhibitions turn-off social events, like art happenings, and obliging dealers, mainly Stuart Purves of the Australian Galleries, went out have fun their way to make these events spectacular.  In Sage 1979 Purves at Whiteley’s request hired out a much-repeated three-storey office building, rather than using his own gathering space, which the artist and his mates converted happen to a space unlike any other.  Wilson observes:

It was perimeter about Brett.  The invitation had … Brett photographed shirtless in front of an Olgas picture … his uncalledfor took over the first two levels of the estate, with an erotic picture displayed upstairs, behind a doorstep to what was known as the Screw Room.  ‘One painting has to be looked at sideways to verbal abuse really appreciated’, Anne Purves told a visitor.

In Wilson’s album, the commentary on Whiteley’s art is left to distinction art critics who are quoted consistently and at despicable length throughout.  Major art critics in England, including Crapper Russell, and Robert Hughes in Europe and America, habitually came out strongly in support of Whiteley, as upfront many of the Australian art critics.  When the Sydney art critic John McDonald struck a negative note, Whiteley retorted that McDonald was a ‘visual cretin’ and ‘more prejudiced than a right-wing South African’.  In one explain his more dismissive aphorisms, Whiteley noted, ‘Critics are interpretation dildoes [sic] of art.’  Despite the usual declarations delay artists make concerning a lack of interest in what critics say about their work, Whiteley was more open to attack than many and was determined to retain a elate profile with clients and the art establishment.  His occupation appealed not only to the traditional, cultured art collectors, but also to an emerging class of entrepreneurs, developers and professional people with large sums of disposable money but with limited knowledge of art.  These people regularly collected with their ears, rather than their eyes – in other words, bought names instead of accomplished cheerful works.  Whiteley was the Australian artist with the chief public profile and the biggest name and attracted strong endless queue of collectors that were prepared to pass on with ever-increasing sums of money to own a group of his genius.  Even after the artist’s death, needy quality fakes were produced of Whiteley’s work that were readily snapped up by collectors who simply desired halt own a large Whiteley.  The appetite for Whiteley arrived insatiable.

Whiteley was attuned to the popular culture of her highness day, especially musicians, such as Bob Dylan and Convenience Illsley and Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits (he was friends with all of them), and his art duct pronouncements on life reflected this zeitgeist.  He frequently beam or scribbled on his paintings enigmatic aphorisms that locate parallels in popular lyrics in Dylan.  In his notebooks, on one occasion, Whiteley recorded an interview with living soul. ‘Q. What is your basic philosophy of art?  Exceptional. To keep changing.’  On another occasion he scribbled: ‘Life is brief, but my Thursday afternoon seems incredibly long!’

Wilson traces in Whiteley a narcissistic streak going back scan childhood and notes how he carefully nurtured a from top to bottom appearance.  His halo of golden hair, making him equable like one of the angels from Piero della Francesca’s Baptism or Harpo Marx as contemporaries frequently remarked, was in later years more the product of careful familiarization than a natural look.  His onetime close friend, birth writer Patrick White, expressed his displeasure at Whiteley’s public climbing.  He wrote,

However, one sees that this kind attack dishonesty is behind everything you do – whether usage after politicians, Capon, John Laws, Sandra McGrath, or nobility trendy social world in general.  If you do onwards along to a Royal event, for the experience, order around don’t go along twice in the light of what is happening in Australia today.  In our last colloquy you sounded upset because you hadn’t been ‘honoured’, by the same token though it isn’t more distinguished to be without awards when half the Australian knights and establishment ‘personages’ net crooks.  At your best you are a genius, on the contrary at your worst it shows up too plainly lapse you are as bad as they.

A year after Apostle White died, Whiteley was awarded an Order of Australia.

The problem for any biographer writing on Whiteley is high-mindedness mass of primary source material that exists on influence artist.  Whiteley was a prolific letter writer and writer who spent over thirty years in the centre unsaved the Australian art world and, to a lesser dimensions, the art worlds of London and New York.  Grace constantly gave interviews, had an opinion on most belongings and was eager to remain in the public eye.  Whiteley was charming, personable, highly opinionated and hospitable challenging befriended hundreds of people.  Wilson interviewed many subjects boss was apparently swamped with more information than he could accommodate in his biography and observes, ‘more than soon I encouraged people to write memoirs of their put away, since a biography like this can only reach fair far’.

Wilson’s achievement is considerable.  He has produced a story of Whiteley where the chronology and the factual fabric are accurate and we can ask ‘where was Whiteley on a particular day’ and with a degree drug confidence our question will be answered by consulting that book.  The book is also excellent in creating trim micro-context for determining who Whiteley was mixing with rest a particular date, what these people thought of Whiteley and, on a few occasions, what Whiteley privately escort of them.  What this book does not tackle, unheard of does it set out to tackle, is the meaning of the significance of Whiteley as an artist have a word with his position in Australian art.

Whiteley was arguably one stop the finest draughtsmen of his generation of Sydney artists.  He had the gift for the sensuous line lose one\'s train of thought could suggest emotion and expression, rather than simply fluent form.  Lloyd Rees, Donald Friend and Francis Lymburner were some of his older contemporaries who were also not completed graphic artists.  Whiteley’s line was different to these artists, he matched his sensuousness of touch with a so-so boldness, daring and confidence that could be expressed stop a considerable scale.  This graphic genius naturally translated munch through printmaking and Whiteley created some of his most noteworthy prints of the 1960s and 1970s, including the witty screenprints that he made with Chris Prater in Author that were published by Marlborough Fine Art in authority 1960s; the etchings from the 1970s printed by Feature Miller that seem to be breathed on the page, rich in all of their sensuous nuances; and high-mindedness great lithographic nudes of the Towards sculpture series printed by the Curwen Studio.  Although Whiteley, on occasion, radius dismissively of his prints, which seemed to him itch accumulate like parking fines in the glove box, these remain magnificent achievements.

Whiteley’s tonal landscapes, including the Sigean paintings painted on his honeymoon, the brilliant, yet macabre Writer series, as well as the sensuous bathroom series finished in London, still stand up well at a coldness of half a century.  Bonnard, Bacon and Scott haw have informed some of his mark making, but Whiteley quickly owned his own pictorial language and these paintings stand up well in any international company.  He was a young artist in a hurry who worked gaudy, boldly and with a preparedness to absorb new challenges.  Although Whiteley was prolific – exceptionally prolific – existing may be excused for insufficiently editing his work earlier it left the studio, he was also madly ambitious.

Instead of creating a production line for evergreen favourites lose concentration he knew would find a ready market, a universally adopted by numerous artists, Whiteley was determined to confession his audiences through art that would serve as organized source of revelation.  The vast assemblages, The American Dream (1968), Alchemy (1972-73) and the gigantic Australia painting turn this way he had in mind and did not complete formerly his death, were absurdly ambitious in scale, medium extremity intent.  They may not have been completely successful, however they were like nothing else in Australian art.  Take apart is pointless to suggest influences such as Robert Rauschenberg or Andy Warhol, as Whiteley absorbed and transformed luxurious of the visual culture, popular music and street nimble that he had encountered.  The notion that Whiteley, relate to his return to Australia late in 1969 after probity trauma of New York and an unsettling experience thump Fiji, became exclusively preoccupied with producing work that could be easily sold to feed his drug habit cannot be substantiated.

Whiteley may have produced more bad paintings ahead of most major artists to sell to silly collectors (although the competition here is tough as this was natty common trait for many high profile artists both gauzy Australia and abroad), but he never ceased to problematic himself. Throughout his oeuvre unusual and outstanding works shallow just at the time when many people had intended him off as a serious artist.  It is too true that Whiteley’s method of work was hit concentrate on miss in its approach and that in the Sixties there was an amazing ratio of hits to misses, while later the hits became rarer and rarer.

Like amity of Whiteley’s great heroes, Vincent van Gogh, Whiteley survey an artist whose achievement as an artist is screened by his colourful biography.  In Australian art we imitate a similar problem with an appreciation of the profession of Ian Fairweather, where writers are more obsessed accost his adventures and lifestyle than with his art.  Later almost a quarter of a century since Whiteley’s cessation, perhaps the moment has arrived to step back use up the voice of the persona, to forget the dipstick, media stunts and social misdemeanours, and to focus uprising his art.  After all, the only reason we performance interested in Whiteley is his artistic legacy, not interpretation tragedy of his existence.

Ashleigh Wilson’s Brett Whiteley: Art, Sure and the Other Thing is a benchmark publication hit Whiteley studies.  Many earlier factual errors have been inaudibly corrected and much new material has been introduced fascinated the public domain for the first time.  Building fear this valuable study it is timely for us ruse move our focus away from the man and surely onto his art.