Brett Whiteley (1939 – 1992) Study of artworks

Self Portrait, at age 16 Calligraphys biggest struggle Is not with ink… Its that memory is action Minus think!

Lloyd Rees was an early mentor to Whiteley in Sydney, and had a strong influence in his early direction. Other strong influences in Whiteleys artwork were Matisse, Francis Bacon, Modigliani,

Compare Van Goghs Night Café and Whiteleys Night Café

Sofala, (1958) This painting was one of the three paintings that Whiteley submitted into the Italian Government Travelling Art Competition, which he won in 1960 at age 20. This generous scholarship enabled him to travel extensively in Europe, painting and exhibiting in Italy, France and London.

Untitled Red Painting (1961) This painting was exhibited in London in 1961 during a joint exhibition with other emerging Australian artists of that time such as Arthur Boyd, Sydney Nolan and Russell Drysdale. Untitled Red Painting was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London, and at just 21 this made Whiteley the youngest artist ever to have work purchased by this prestigious gallery.

The most beautiful mountain 1969 oil

Woman in the Bath

The Bush 1966 Inscriptions: u.r. (3rd panel) in black ink 'what perfumes, what evils, be below all this green/singing ringing lazy: unpredictable unshaved shrapnel seen;/ but go beneath - beyond any death adder scheme/ - There! Stillness? Seething complete/ divided + kindled on uranium heat, that can't / ask reason gently to kiss flesh to cheat.'

Self Portrait after 3 bottles of Wine

To Yarrawilla, 1972

Four Studies of Her

The Balcony 2 (1975)

Alchemy Inscriptions: c. in black ink (panel 1) 'For the poet is a light + winged and holy thing,/ and there is no invention in him until he has been/ inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind/ is no longer in him; when he has not attained/ to this state, he is powerless and is unable to/ utter his oracles/ Plato/ 1. The way that can be spoken of/ Is not the constant way;/ Alchemy/ the Grand work/ to bring together all the previous/ TRANSMUTATION/ or God?/ A lot of the time the experience cannot be expressed by merely discribing [sic] one single absolute image,/ for one image cannot hold it. Only by evoking a chain of images, as in a dream, does one/ approximate the experience. A single flash of understanding with each grouping or 'chapter' of/ forms, is what is expected from the viewer. This elliptical + heretic style of painting allows/ for infinite freedom - for both of us. But to lose the place, or stumble, all is lost, the/ picture is meaningless. The thread is the Transmutation./ The fine art of painting, which is the bastard of alchemy, always has been always will be,/ a game. The rules of the game are quite simple: in a given arena, on as many psychic/ fronts as the talent allows, one must visually describe, the centre of the meaning of existense [sic]'

Art Life and the Other Thing (1978) (Triptych) Oil, glass eye, hair, pen and ink on cardboard, plaster, photography, oil, dried PVA, cigarette butts, hypodermic syringe on board, 90.4 x 77.2, 230 x 122, 31.1 x 31.1 cm; signed and dated in black ink 1.r. 'brett Whiteley 1978', signed verso in black oil on masking tape 'BRETT

Big Orange (Sunset) 1974, (part of the Lavender Series) (oil & collage on wood)