Oil painting -> List of Painters -> Brett-Whiteley
Brett-Whiteley
Early Life: Brett-Whiteley Whiteley was born in Sydney, where he started drawing very early in his life. While a teenager, he painted on weekends at Bathurst and Sydney with such works as The Soup Kitchen which he did in 1958. In 1960, Whiteley won a Traveling Scholarship from the Italian Government, and moved to London. One of the works he submitted to win the scholarship was done in images which were slightly abstracted in brownish colors called Sofala; he had painted this in 1956. After winning the scholarship he travelled around Europe, visiting Italy, France and England. He arrived in London at a time when many Australian artists were becoming popular in England. During this period, there was a lure with Australian art there. Australian artists Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale had become well known and were exhibiting in London, as well as many other Australian artists who were also there. It helped him that Australian artists were looked on favorably at this time by the English public. After meeting the director of the Whitechapel gallery, he was included in the group show 'Survey of Recent Australian Painting' where his Untitled Red painting was bought by the Tate gallery. This made him the youngest artist to have ever been bought by the Tate, and it was this fact which helped him to have even more success, such as when he won the first prize for Australia at the Biennale de la Jeunesse in Paris. During the next few years he had much contact with artists in London and in travels to other parts of the world, and it was these friendships and contacts which helped him to become an accepted artist. |
Career:
Whiteley experimented with styles based on the art of Van Gogh, using portraits based on Vincent Van Gogh's self portraits, such as Vincent. After Whiteley found a book about Van Gogh on the floor of the church in Bathurst when he was very young, it changed his perception of the world around him. One image which uses Van Gogh's style in a unique way is Night Cafe. He has taken the Van Gogh painting and stretched the lines of the room to a single vanishing point, creating an image which appears fast moving and extremely vibrant and dynamic.
Another work where imagery is borrowed from the art of another artist is in Rembrandt, where he painted a large somewhat gloomy looking portrait of the Dutch master.