Brett Whiteley, The Artist

Brett Whiteley, The Artist

Brett Whiteley (1939 – 1992) is considered as one of Australia's most unique, talented and expressionistic contemporary artists. His drawings and paintings as a teenager earned him a travelling art scholarship that took him to England. While living in London he was fortunate enough   to exhibit his own work at a time when Australian artists such as Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale were very popular amongst the English public. While living in London Whiteley became the youngest artists to have a painting bought by the Tate gallery. He followed that up by winning a scholarship to study and work in New York. The Harkness Foundation Scholarship to New York allowed him to meet other artists and musicians while he stayed at the Chelsea Hotel. While in New York he spent a large amount of time and effort on one particular artwork in order to promote peace against the Vietnam war. However, after his art was refused to be shown in a gallery he fled to Fiji before returning to Sydney permanently, where he achieved his greatest success in winning numerous prestigious awards. His works included images and themes such as zoo animals, sexuality, politics and crime. He also borrowed images from other artists such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt and painted them with an innovative approach. Over his career Whiteley won many prestigious awards and his paintings have been sold for millions of dollars. He is one of my personal favourite artists and I admire his art for its lively imagery as well as its unique style and designs that appear to be part of his subconcious. In this essay I will discuss about the different places, people and periods that influenced the style and themes of his artwork.


Whiteley was born in Sydney in 1939, where he started drawing very early in his life. At the young age of 17 he painted an abstracted masterpiece called Sofala and then two years later in 1958 he produced The Soup Kitchen. In 1960 he submitted both of these pieces to the Art...