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Lot Essay
As a recipient of the Italian Traveling Scholarship Brett Whiteley based himself in Italy, working mostly in Rome and Florence in 1960. There he was overwhelmed by his lack of knowledge of art history and immediately began to immerse himself in the feast of art, especially Byzantine, Quattrocento and Renaissance painting that surrounded him and was part of everyone's life. Suddenly he found that the heat of the Mediterranean was a life-force and that it need not always be the destructive force. "I saw that heat could be a renewal, that it did not have to be an unknown or an ending. It didn't have to be hell or the end of a bushfire. There was an optimism that was not present in Drysdale's outback colours".
The paintings that emerged in Italy and in London in 1961, are rich evocations of all the life-force he felt in Italy and its culture. Not just the old masters, but also an enthusiasm for the company of others, daily life, and eating, all of which were part of an ancient tradition. Abandoning painting his muse, Wendy, as the subject of his painting, Whiteley painted a series usually considered as abstract, but vitally linked to forms drawn from the everyday world. Saturated in rich colour, in particular the tomato red which gives its name to several of the paintings, they possess the energy, eroticism and restlessness we associate with Whiteley's work for the rest of his life.
Untitled red painting is abstract only in that there is no obvious subject. In it the viewer sees the life studies of the young student as well as the adoring paintings of the young Wendy and the figure paintings to come, in the Christie series, the Bondi beach belles and the studio nudes. There are also evocations of the rocky landscape of the Australian outback, but these are combined with, or softened by, his experience of the Tuscan landscape, especially as depicted by the Italians whose work he had discovered: Duccio, Uccello and Piero della Francesca. And, of course, there is reference to his hero, Russell Drysdale, who had judged the Traveling Scholarship and whose work had had such a profound influence on the young artist.
In 1961 the Whitechapel Gallery in London mounted a Survey of Recent Australian Painting. Three of Whiteley's paintings were selected to be hung and proved to be the most popular paintings in the exhibition. The Tate Gallery purchased Untitled Red Painting, 1960, making Whiteley the youngest artist ever acquired for that institution. The then influential Contemporary Art Society acquired Untitled White Painting, 1960. Whiteley was set for success.
We are grateful to John McPhee for providing this catalogue entry
The paintings that emerged in Italy and in London in 1961, are rich evocations of all the life-force he felt in Italy and its culture. Not just the old masters, but also an enthusiasm for the company of others, daily life, and eating, all of which were part of an ancient tradition. Abandoning painting his muse, Wendy, as the subject of his painting, Whiteley painted a series usually considered as abstract, but vitally linked to forms drawn from the everyday world. Saturated in rich colour, in particular the tomato red which gives its name to several of the paintings, they possess the energy, eroticism and restlessness we associate with Whiteley's work for the rest of his life.
Untitled red painting is abstract only in that there is no obvious subject. In it the viewer sees the life studies of the young student as well as the adoring paintings of the young Wendy and the figure paintings to come, in the Christie series, the Bondi beach belles and the studio nudes. There are also evocations of the rocky landscape of the Australian outback, but these are combined with, or softened by, his experience of the Tuscan landscape, especially as depicted by the Italians whose work he had discovered: Duccio, Uccello and Piero della Francesca. And, of course, there is reference to his hero, Russell Drysdale, who had judged the Traveling Scholarship and whose work had had such a profound influence on the young artist.
In 1961 the Whitechapel Gallery in London mounted a Survey of Recent Australian Painting. Three of Whiteley's paintings were selected to be hung and proved to be the most popular paintings in the exhibition. The Tate Gallery purchased Untitled Red Painting, 1960, making Whiteley the youngest artist ever acquired for that institution. The then influential Contemporary Art Society acquired Untitled White Painting, 1960. Whiteley was set for success.
We are grateful to John McPhee for providing this catalogue entry