STUDIES

Julian Ashton School, 1957, 59. In 1960 an Italian scholarship took him to London where his great natural talent for drawing, his lack of inhibitions and taste for exotic influences, such as that of Francis bacon, made the 21 year old painter an exciting prospect for London dealers. His work was shown at the Whitechapel and Marlborough galleries from 1961, and in that year he was selected to represent his country at the 'young Painters' Convention' UNESCO. Paris. Even more crucial to his future was his success in winning the International prize at the second ‘Biennale de Paris' (International Biennale for Young Artists), which brought with it the excitement, glamour and disadvantages of world publicity. The story of Brett Whiteley's life and career has already been written in detail in books. Of mom concern is the way in which his lifestyle integrated with his art. And In this connection the poets am painters who were his acknowledged influences made a significant contribution. Verlaine, Rimbaud, Pascin. Fancis Bacon and Perhaps even his near contemporary. Yves Klein, whose intense and tragic way of life. So strangely symbolised in his irrational obsession with the colours blue and gold, were clearly echoed in Whiteley's work. Nearly all his mentors seem early in their careers to have embarked on elaborate courses of self destruction, as if this were the natural corollary for achieving, the ultimate freedom in self expression, the whole pattern of Whiteley's life was therefore written into his drawings and paintings its scintillating brilliance, Its ecstasy and its foreboding. After 1961 he returned to Australia, held exhibition and then travelled in the USA end Asian countries. What he learned from his contacts with such countries as Cambodia, Vietnam and Japan is expressed in his drawings and paintings, and even more in sculptures such as his 'Asia', a construction in fur, steel and acrylic in which a white wallaby was depicted with its head stuck in a sewerage pipe. During the 1979s he won a number of national prizes and settled at lavender Bay, Sydney there to produce the lavender

AWARDS

1956 Bathurst prize for young artists
1960 Italian travelling scholarship
1961 Dyason grant AGNSW; Commonwealth Art Advisory Board scholarship for
work in France; International prize Biennale de Paris
1965 T E Wardle Invitation Art Prize, Perth.
1967 Harkness Foundation scholarship
1975 Sir William Angliss memorial pnu
1975,76,77 McCaughey prize
1976 Archibald prize
Sulman Prize,
1977.78 Wynne prize

REP.
NGA, AGNSW, AGSA, AGWA, MAGNT, NOV, QAG, QVMAG, TMAG, many regional galleries, Tate Gallery, London, MOMA New York

AWARDS

Bsthurst prize for young artists, 1956
Italian traveling scholarship 1960
Dyason grant AGNSW 1961
Commonwealth Art Advisory Board scholarship for work in France 1961
International prim Biennale de Paris" 1961
T E Wardle invitation Art Prize, Perth, 1965
Harkness Foundation scholarship 1967
Sir William Angliss memorial prize 1975
McCaughey prize 1975, 76, 77
Archibald prize 1976
Sulman prize, 1976, 78
Wynne prize 1977, 78

REP.
NGA, AGNSW, AGSA. AGWA. MAGNT, NGV. QAG, QVMAG, TMAG, many regional galleries, Tate Gallery, London. MOMA Now York