Brett Whiteley AO, artist, displayed a brilliant talent for drawing as a Sydney private schoolboy. After studying half-heartedly at art school he travelled to Europe on a scholarship. In London he excited art dealers and fell under the influence of painters such as Francis Bacon. He won the international prize at the second Paris Biennale for Young Artists in 1961, and married his beautiful muse, Wendy Julius, the following year. Through the 1960s he exhibited around the world before returning to live on the Sydney harbourside. He began the 1970s with gentle pictures of birds, moving on to massive portraits of the poets Verlaine and Rimbaud before taking two years to paint the eighteen-panel Alchemy 1972-1973. He then turned to series of paintings of waves, interiors, the harbour, and coastal landscapes. In 1978, his annus mirabilis, he became the first artist to win the Archibald Prize for portraiture, the Wynne Prize for landscape and the Sulman Prize for genre painting all in the same year. He died of an overdose in a motel in Thirroul, New South Wales in the winter of 1992.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2010
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Brett Whiteley (age 50 in 1989)
Patrick Corrigan AM (123 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves: who we read, who we watch, who we listen to, who we cheer for, who we aspire to be, and who we'll never forget. The Companion is available to buy online and in the Portrait Gallery Store.
Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.
Portraits of philanthropists in the collection honour their contributions to Australia and acknowledge their support of the National Portrait Gallery.
