Brett Whiteley was born in Sydney, Australia in 1939. He moved to London in 1960 and became the youngest artist to ever have work acquired by the Tate Gallery at just 22 years old. Whiteley had his first solo exhibition at the Matthiesen Gallery in 1962. While residing in London, Brett became acquainted with Francis Bacon, whose influence can be noted throughout his work from this time. After an extended period travelling between Europe, Morocco, USA and Fiji, he eventually returned to Australia.
Painter Brett Whiteley was born in Sydney, Australia, on 7 April 1939. He began drawing from a young age and often spent his school weekends painting in the Central West region of New South Wales. From 1956–59 he attended various art groups and classes, including John Santry’s sketch club and life drawing classes at the Julian Ashton Art School. Whiteley then worked as a commercial artist for the Lintas Advertising Agency, during which time he met Wendy Julius, his future wife, who was studying at the National Art School, East Sydney, where he often attended life drawing classes. In 1959 he was encouraged to submit work for the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship. His work Around Bathurst won him the award, leading him to move to Europe where he worked for the next few years, exhibiting in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin.
Whiteley and his wife moved to England in 1960 where they settled in Ladbroke Grove, west London. London in the early 1960s had a taste for Australian art, evidenced through both the Whitechapel Gallery’s Recent Australian Painting (1961) and Tate Gallery’s Australian Painting (1963) exhibitions, in which Whiteley’s work featured. At the time, he became the youngest artist to ever have work acquired by the Tate Gallery, at just 22 years old. Whiteley had his first solo exhibition at the prestigious Matthiesen Gallery in 1962, established by German émigré, Francis Matthieson. The ObserverArt Critic Neville Wallis described Whiteley as a ‘Young Sydney painter making his mark in Europe with evocations of his tawny landscape in shapes suggestive of boulders and primitive human-into-landscape anatomy. Most expressive are his less congested, fluid little variants on the theme (Wallis 1962, p. 26), whereas the Guardian noted that his ‘paintings are large and would lose more than half their impact if they were smaller – which is the final proof that they are constructed with a trial-and-error intelligence. Their colour is both rich and subtle’ (Newton 1962, p. 7).
During his seven years in London Whiteley became immersed within the capital's artistic community and often rubbed shoulders with many acclaimed British artists. His work featured in the Whitechapel Gallery’s important survey exhibition British painting in the sixties (1963) and New Generation: 1964, alongside pieces by Bridget Riley and David Hockney. Both Whiteley’s Christie (c.1964–5) and London Zoo (c.1964–5) series were debuted at the Marlborough New London Gallery in 1965. The Christie series was influenced by the early death of Whiteley’s father in 1963 alongside a personal interest in dark historical events which led to its uncomfortable subject matter. The Whiteley's west London flat was close to the former home of the infamous murderer, John Christie, who had killed several women and a child in the 1940s and 1950s. Christie famously lured his victims – mostly sex-workers – into his flat by posing as a doctor. Following their murders, Christie hid the bodies of his victims in the walls of his house. The profound effect of this disturbing subject matter echoes darkly through the series, every image intended to capture the violation and distortion of each female figure, while the series' overall present a dramatic thematic contrast to Whiteley’s previous work. His Bathroom paintings (c.1963–5) featured delicately intimate portrayals of Wendy bathing. While living in London, Whiteley also became acquainted with the painter Francis Bacon, whose influence can be noted throughout work from this period. The warped figures of the Bathroom paintings display obvious nods towards Bacon’s distorted style, while the dark subject matter of the Christie works are Bacon-esque in tone. On numerous occasions Whiteley drew Bacon in his studio, entering portraits of him into two Archibald Prize exhibitions.
In 1967 following a period of regular travel to destinations including Majorca, Tangier and Madrid, Whiteley was awarded the Harkness Fellowship (a scholarship which allowed multiple academics, artists and professionals to study in the United States) leading him to relocate to New York. He moved into an apartment in the famous Chelsea Hotel which was frequented by musical icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen. Whiteley’s reckless reputation often preceded him, as references of his drug and alcohol consumption are rarely omitted from descriptions of his life. His biography lent itself to fantastical retellings of the 1960s and 1970s, shaped by art and underpinned by intoxication. He continued to travel, leaving New York for Fiji in 1969 before moving back to Australia. In 1985 Whiteley purchased an old T-shirt factory in Surry Hills, New South Wales, which he converted into a studio, which still exists today, holding a collection of Whiteley’s work. Brett Whiteley died of a heroin overdose in Thirroul, New South Wales, Australia on 15 June 1992. His work can be found in UK public collections including Tate and the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, as well as in all major Australian art galleries.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Brett Whiteley]
Publications related to [Brett Whiteley] in the Ben Uri Library