Two-time Archibald Prize winner Brett Whiteley AO displayed a brilliant talent for drawing as a child. 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. Whiteley remained in Europe for the next decade, exhibiting his work regularly in group exhibitions in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin, and establishing an international reputation for his vivid, large-scale interiors and landscapes. While he worked across painting, printmaking and sculpture, he was essentially a draughtsman with drawing at the core of his practice. In particular, exaggeration, elongation, motion and distorted perspectives were strategies used throughout his oeuvre. Whiteley made many trips to Paris, and in 1989 he spent two months in an apartment on Rue de Tournon. This self portrait may date from this period, and showcases his incessant desire to draw, reducing himself to organic free-flowing lines and abstraction.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Wendy Whiteley
Brett Whiteley (age 50 in 1989)
Patrick Corrigan AM (130 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
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.
