Brett Whiteley

Brett Whiteley est un artiste australien, né le 7 avril 1939 et mort le 15 juin 1992. L'un des principaux peintres australiens du XX^e siècle, il est représenté dans la plupart des galeries de son pays.

Carrière

Débuts

Whiteley fut très précoce dans la peinture. Durant son adolescence, Whiteley peignait les week-ends à Bathurst et à Sydney, produisant des œuvres comme The Soup Kitchen en 1958. En 1960, il gagna une bourse du gouvernement italien, notamment grâce à Sofala (peint en 1956). Il voyagea en Europe (France, Italie, Angleterre) et s'intalla à Londres, à une période durant laquelle les artistes australiens devenaient populaires en Angleterre, avec notamment Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan et Russell Drysdale. Après avoir rencontré le directeur de la Whitechapel Gallery, Whiteley fit partie d'un groupe de peintres australiens et produisit Untitled Red painting, qui fut acheté par la Tate Gallery. Cela fit de lui le plus jeune artiste dont une œuvre était achetée par la Tate, ce qui eut un important impact sur son succès, concrétisé par un premier prix lors de la Biennale de la Jeunesse de Paris. Il accumula ensuite les contacts avec des artistes (à Londres et durant ses voyages).

Période londonienne

En 1962, il se marria à Wendy Julius (petite-fille de Sir George Julius and arrière-petite-fille de C.Y. O'Connor) et leur unique enfant, Arkie Whiteley (future actrice), naquit à Londres en 1964.

À Londres, Whiteley peignit plusieurs séries de travaux, influencées par l'art moderniste des années 1960 et principalement constituées de formes abstraites brunâtres, qui établirent sa reconnaissance. Parmi sa série sur les images de salles de bain, on peut citer Woman in Bath, qui représente sa femme de dos dans une baignoire, ou Woman in the Bath II, influencé par les peintures abstraites jaunes et rouges du début des années 60.

En 1964, Whiteley fut fasciné par le meurtrier John Christie, qui commit plusieurs crimes près de la résidence du peintre à Ladbroke Grove. Il peignit alors les Christie series. Avec Head of Christie, son intention était de faire un portrait de la violence des évènements dont il s'inspirait mais sans être trop choquant pour le public : cette œuvre représentait un visage enveloppé et déformé, avec une expression méchante.

Whiteley fit aussi une série de peintures sur les animaux du zoo de Londres, parmi lesquelles on peut citer Two Indonesian Giraffes. Ce travail lui sembla parfois difficile à cause du mouvement des animaux.

Cette période fut aussi marquée par quelques peintures jaunâtres de plages, comme le collage The Beach II, fait lors d'une brève visite en Australie, qui lui valut une bourse pour étudier et travailler aux États-Unis.

Période new-yorkaise

En 1967, il s'intalla à New York grâce à sa bourse (Harkness Foundation Scholarship to New York). Il transmit sa première impression de la ville dans First Sensation of New York City, qui montre des rues avec des voitures rapides, des panneaux, des vendeurs de hot-dogs et des grands immeubles. Idéaliste, influencé par le mouvement pacifiste de l'époque, Whiteley pensait que les Américains pourraient retirer leurs troupes du Vietnam s'il réussissait à marquer les esprits avec une immense œuvre en faveur de la paix. Le résultat fut The American Dream, comprenant 18 panneaux de bois composés de collage, de photographie et de peinture, sur 22 mètres de long, qui lui demandèrent un année de travail. Cette œuvre est un exemple parfait de la taille de ses œuvres durant sa période américaine, probablement influencée par les artistes contemporains américains. The American Dream représentait une évolution d'un océan serein d'un côté vers un chaos total de l'autre. Certaines idées furent guidées par l'alcool, la marijuana et d'autres drogues, qu'il expérimenta durant ces années et dont il avoua plusieurs fois l'impact sur son subconscient.

Cependant, sa galerie, Marlborough-Gerson, refusa de montrer The American Dream, ce qui le décida à quitter New York pour les îles Fidji, cherchant un refuge équivalent au côté serein et océanique de son œuvre.

Période fidjienne

Aux Fidji, Whiteley peignit des personnes Whiteley made paintings in Fiji of the people, similar to the way that Gauguin had travelled to Tahiti to paint native people and culture in the nineteenth century. Whiteley painted the native people of Fiji, such as in Fiji Head - to a creole lady which incorporates text as well as a downward looking portrait. During his time in Fiji, he started painting birds, which were a source of great beauty for him which he enjoyed painting. The birds which he painted could represent a way of escaping from sometimes violent feelings. He had a violent nature that others noticed. Whiteley had experience in painting animals from his zoo series in London. A stylised image of a bird he painted in Orange Fruit Dove Fiji which shows the bird looking towards fruit on a plant, while it is sitting on its nest with eggs shown below. The bird is bright and striking, with red which could represent blood shown on its body and on its beak. He must have been thinking about Gauguin's experience in Tahiti, for he painted Gauguin which showed an image of a daydreaming Gauguin against a backdrop of island scenery. He later developed further works based on the art of other art and it was very good

Appropriations

Whiteley experimented with styles based around 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.

Alchemy

Part of his work Alchemy was featured on the cover of the Dire Straits live album Alchemy although it had the addition of a guitar with lips held by a hand. The original painting, done between 1972 and 1973 was composed of many different elements and on many different panels, similar to The American Dream. While the idea of the massive work on many different panels had developed in America, this new work was Australian. It had many curved and illustrious shapes, sexual imagery and giant letters IT on one of the panels. Just looking at the elements from which he composed the work shows the wide variety in materials he used; everything from feathers and part of a birds nest to a glass eye, shell, plugs and 'brain'. It has been regarded as a self-portrait, a giant outpouring of energy and ideas brought forth over a long period of time. He did not even know what it would look like when it was finished. Many of the panels are golden, referring to the process of alchemy. Others are full of tiny drawings and little details showing forms, many of which are based on the human figure, such as ears, hands, body parts and sexual imagery. The work refers to transformation, such as with the mythical transformation of ordinary metal to gold, Whiteley is possibly trying to say something about his personality, that he wanted to change away from various addictions, but was not able to. He is also talking about looking at what does not exist.

Sydney harbour and landscapes

Whiteley loved painting Sydney Harbour views in the 1970s such in his painting Interior with time past, which shows an interior and exterior view starting with a room that leads through open windows to the harbour full of boats outside. The table in the front of the room close to the viewer has minutely decorated vases and small objects, while a drawing on the left and a sculpture to the extreme right show how Whiteley often used erotic images in his works. He painted a view of his friend Patrick White as a rock or a headland in Headland, because he had told Whiteley that in the next life he would like to come back as a rock. Whiteley painted other images of the Australian landscape, including a view of the south coast of New South Wales after it had been raining called South Coast After the Rain. He did paintings of the area around Bathurst, Oberon and also Marulan, all in New South Wales. He painted abstracted images of bush scenes such as The Bush and also images which resulted from experimentation with various drugs, such as alcohol in the humorous Self Portrait after three bottles of wine.

Success with Archibald and other prizes

In the late seventies Brett Whiteley had great success with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, winning all of their major prizes twice. These were the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes, considered the most prestigious art prizes in Australia.

His wins were:

• 1976
  • Archibald Prize: Self Portrait in the Studio
  • Sulman Prize: Interior with Time Past
• 1977
  • Wynne Prize: The Jacaranda Tree (On Sydney Harbour)
• 1978
  • Archibald Prize: Art, Life and the other thing
  • Sulman Prize: Yellow Nude
  • Wynne Prize: Summer at Carcoar

1978 was the only time that all three prizes have gone to the same person, so this was quite an achievement. He was at the peak of his career. His first Archibald win, Self Portrait in the Studio shows a view of his studio at Lavender Bay overlooking the harbour, with his reflection in a mirror shown at the bottom of the picture, while the painting is primarily a look at his studio, shown in deep, bluish tones. As with many of his works, the viewer is led deeper into the picture with minute detail, and a view of Sydney harbour is on the left which establishes the location of the picture. These paintings along with some of the other works, show Whiteley's love for ultramarine blue, Matisse, for collecting objects and for a love of Sydney Harbour. His second Archibald win, Art, Life and the other thing, again shows his willingness to experiment with different mediums such as photography and collage, and his respect for art history, including an image of the famous 1943 William Dobell portrait of Joshua Smith, which won a court case against people who claimed it was a caricature, not a portrait. He also experiments with warping and manipulating a straight self portrait and altering and distorting the image, incorporating brilliantly his pictorial sense of addiction. He later won the Wynne Prize again, in 1984 with The South Coast After Rain

Difficult Pleasure

He was the subject of an ABC television documentary called Difficult Pleasure directed by Don Featherstone in 1989, which showed him talking about many of his main works, and his recent works such as ones done on a month long trip to Paris, one of his last overseas trips. He also showed his large T-shirt collection, and talks about his sculpture, which he said is an aspect that many people do not take seriously about his work. Difficult pleasure is how he described painting, or creating art: Art is an argument between what a thing looks like and what it means.

Later years

Whiteley became increasingly dependent on alcohol and became addicted to heroin leading to bouts of schizophrenia. Whiteley's work output began a steep decline, although its market value continued to climb. He made several attempts to dry out and get off drugs completely, all ultimately unsuccessful. In 1989, he divorced Wendy, whom he had always credited as his 'muse', and on June 15, 1992, he died of a heroin overdose, alone in a motel in Thirroul, north of Wollongong, New South Wales.

In 1999, Whiteley's painting The Jacaranda Tree (1977), which had won the Wynne Prize, sold for $1,982,000, a record for a modern Australian painter. Before this, his previous highest-selling work was The Pond at Bundanon for $649,500. In 2007 his painting the Olgas sold for an Australian record of 3.5 million dollars. [1] On May 7, 2007, Opera House, (which took Whiteley a decade to paint, and which he exchanged with Qantas for a period of free air travel) sold for $2.8 million, in Sydney.[2]

Voir aussi

Bibliographie

• Hopkirk, F. (1996) A portrait of Brett Whiteley by his sister. Random House, Milsons Point, Sydney
• James, B. (2000) Whiteley with words, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• McGrath, S. (1979) Brett Whiteley. Bay Books, Rushcutters Bay, NSW.
• Pearce, B. Robertson, B. & Whiteley, W. (2004) Brett Whiteley Art & Life. Thames & Hudson Ltd., London
• (en) Bernard Smith, with Terry Smith & Christopher Heathcote, Australian Painting 1788-2000, Melbourne, Vic, Oxford University Press, 2001, 630p
• Whiteley, B. (1983) Another way of looking at Vincent Van Gogh. Richard Griffin Publisher, South Melbourne
• Whiteley, B. (1979) Zoo. Pegasus books, Melbourne.
• Wilson, G. (2001) Select works of Arthur Boyd & Brett Whiteley. Bundanon Trust, West Cambewarra, NSW

Liens externes

• Brett Whiteley Studio - website of the artist's home in Sydney, Australia, now preserved as a museum. Website includes biographical details and an image gallery
• Brett Whiteley Profile - Includes a selection of paintings, artist quotations, biography and links to more resources on the artist.
• http://www.cookshill.com/hmri/artists/brett_whiteley_bio.html
• http://www.artgallery.wa.gov.au//x_conversations2.htm
• http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/brettwhiteley/