In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Ashleigh Wilson chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while researching and writing Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing, his acclaimed biography of Brett Whiteley, one of Australia’s most iconic and enigmatic artists.
Winner, Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, 2017
Shortlisted, Australian Book Design Awards, Non-fiction, 2017
Longlisted, Australian Book Industry Award, Biography of the Year, 2017
Longlisted, Walkley Book Award, 2016
Named among the best books of 2016 by Readings, Australian
and Sydney Morning Herald
Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing is the first authorised biography of one of Australia’s most famous and infamous artists. Deeply conflicted, he was often self-destructive. When he died in 1992, Brett Whiteley left behind decades of ceaseless activity. Some works were bound to a particular place or time, while others are masterpieces of light and line.
Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing has been praised for its comprehensive and candid portrayal of Brett Whiteley’s life and art, offering readers an unprecedented glimpse into the highs and lows of the artist’s extraordinary talent and mercurial character. Brett Whiteley offers readers a nuanced and intimate portrait of the enigmatic human being behind the myths.
Brett Whiteley
Creator: Mark Mohell
National Portrait Gallery
Early in his career, Brett Whiteley flourished in London’s art world. The prestigious Tate Gallery noticed him and in 1961, a major exhibition opened at London’s Whitechapel Gallery featuring the best contemporary artists from Australia. Twenty-two-year-old Brett Whiteley was one of them.
The art critic Robert Hughes admired Brett Whiteley and so did prominent artists such as Lloyd Rees and Sidney Nolan. Brett’s reputation meant his technical accomplishments commanded a certain respect. Ashleigh Wilson noted in the biography that even critics who disliked the themes expressed in Brett Whiteley’s artworks acknowledged his skills as a draughtsman.
Brett Whiteley Portrait of Charles Baudelaire
Trowbridge Gallery
During his lifetime, Brett Whiteley gained both national and international acclaim. His life was a whirlwind of creativity, excess and tragedy. A prolific painter, sculptor and printmaker, his works often reflected the tumultuous nature of his personal life. He is known for his vivid, emotive and often turbulent works that captured the essence of the Australian landscape, the human form and the inner workings of his own psyche.
Brett’s paintings, with their vibrant colours and bold brushstrokes, captured the essence of Australian culture and the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s. By examining Brett Whiteley’s life and work through a contemporary lens, Ashleigh Wilson offers readers a fresh perspective on one of Australia’s most beloved and controversial artists. His portrayal of Brett Whiteley is a meditation on the complexities of genius and the toll it can take.
Brett Whiteley
The Balcony 2, 1975
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Brett Whiteley had arrived in Europe in 1960 determined to make an impression. Before long, he was the youngest artist to have work acquired by the Tate. With his wife, Wendy, and daughter, Arkie, he then immersed himself in bohemian New York. But within two years he fled, having failed to break through.
Back in Sydney, he soon became Australia’s most celebrated artist, winning the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes in the same year. His prices soared. So did his fame. Among his friends were Francis Bacon and Patrick White, Billy Connolly and Mark Knopfler from the British rock band Dire Straits.
However, Whiteley’s life was marked by personal struggles, addiction and a restless pursuit of self-expression. His addictions and the pressures of fame cast a long shadow over his artistic achievements, and he struggled in vain to separate his talent from his disease. Ashleigh Wilson didn’t shy away from these darker aspects, instead presenting a balanced and nuanced portrait of a human being whose genius was often intertwined with his personal turmoil.
Brett Whiteley
Lewis Morley
1974
National Portrait Gallery
Written with unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, and handsomely illustrated with classic Brett Whiteley artworks, rare notebook sketches and candid family photos, this dazzling biography reveals for the first time the full portrait of a mercurial artist.
During our conversation, Ashleigh discloses his meticulous research process, which included several surprise discoveries. He explains how he painstakingly verified the anecdotes of Brett’s family and friends and how he sensitively balanced Brett’s public persona with his human story.
Brett Whiteley Inside the Studio
Brett Whiteley in John K Dellow’s pottery studio, Katoomba (black-and-white reproduction), 1985, photo © John K Dellow
John Curtin Gallery
Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing offers readers a deeply nuanced portrait of one of Australia’s most iconic and complex artists. It celebrates Brett Whiteley’s creative genius and remarkable artistic achievements and his immense contribution to Australia’s art history and culture.
Vitally, Ashleigh Wilson examines the turbulent and often tragic aspects of Brett Whiteley’s personal life with sensitivity and empathy, enabling readers to grasp how these experiences shaped Whiteley’s art and legacy.
Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing invites us to appreciate the paradoxes in Brett Whiteley’s life and work. It challenges us to consider the blurred lines between an artist’s creative output and their personal struggles, and how the two are often inseparable in the making of a masterpiece.
Praise For Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing
With relentless precision, Ashleigh Wilson has provided a peerless grasp of the life and genius of Brett Whiteley. This storied journey of one of Australia’s most mercurial twentieth-century artists will be impossible for the reader to put aside until it is finished. It is the dispassionate biography Whiteley has long needed: a career clarified from the brilliant clouds of myth.
Barry Pearce
Emeritus Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of NSW
A full-dress life of Whiteley that speeds and soars and never ceases to do homage to the colossal confrontation and contradiction the artist represents…Wilson has written that rarest of things, a 400-page biography that is hard to put down…[It] will make you weep for this exasperation of a man and hunger for his art.
Australian
An essential and invaluable resource for any Whiteley scholar...Wilson’s achievement is considerable...Ashleigh Wilson’s Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing is a benchmark publication in Whiteley studies.
Sydney Review of Books
The best biography I read [this year] was Ashleigh Wilson’s Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing…Combines journalistic rigour and personal compassion his landmark account of one of our greatest artists.
Australian
Ashleigh Wilson’s biography of Brett Whiteley is hard to put down. The narrative hums along beautifully, allowing readers a rare insight into Whiteley’s complex genius. A colossal undertaking, helped by extraordinary access. Wilson has delivered readers—and history—an absorbing, detailed and fascinating read.
Walkley Magazine
Ashleigh Wilson methodically tracks this mercurial artist from early family days to his final years—a motley of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and importantly, art.
Art Almanac
About Ashleigh Wilson
Ashleigh Wilson is the author of Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing (2016) and On Artists (2019). In 2022, he also published A Year with Wendy Whiteley: Conversations About Art, Life and Gardening, a conversational portrait of Wendy Whiteley, who married Brett Whiteley in 1962.
Ashleigh was a journalist and editor for more than two decades, based in Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin, and won a Walkley Award for a series on unethical behaviour in the Aboriginal art industry.
Ashleigh lives with his partner, a designer, and their son, and works at the Sydney Opera House.