Wendy Whiteley
Encyclopedia
Wendy Whiteley OAM
(born 1941) is an Australia
n artist and cultural icon.
She is sometimes described as the "grande dame of the Sydney art scene". She is best known as the "goddess muse" and one-time wife of the artist Brett Whiteley
, and as the mother of their daughter, the actress Arkie Whiteley
(1964-2001).
Although Wendy’s life is inextricably intertwined with that of Brett, she has become a notable artistic and cultural figure in her own right, particularly since her ex-husband’s death in 1992. She posed for Brett many times, and his work was strongly influenced by her opinions. Brett always believed that her artistic skills were better than his own, and he relied on her input a great deal. Although they divorced three years before he died, she has control of Brett Whiteley’s estate including the copyright to his works, and she has honoured his memory in the establishment of the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills
, Sydney
, which is now owned and managed as an art museum by the Art Gallery of New South Wales
.
Wendy Whiteley is also known for the restoration and landscaping of a derelict public area in Lavender Bay
, Sydney, which she turned into a "magic garden" and where Brett and Arkie Whiteley’s ashes are buried.
in 1941. She came from a creative, artistic and troubled lineage. Her great-grandfather was Charles Yelverton O’Connor
, engineer for Fremantle
Harbour and the Kalgoorlie Pipeline
, who suicide
d ten months before the pipeline was opened , . Her grandfather was Sir George Julius
, the inventor of the totalisator
and co-founder of the CSIRO
. A great-aunt, Kate O’Connor, was an eccentric and larger-than-life painter who lived in Paris
most of her life , .
Her father, George Yelverton Julius, known as "Gentleman George" was thrown out by her mother for infidelity when Wendy was six and she and her sister have little or no memory of him. When Wendy was about 12, she was devastated to read in the newspapers that her father had been sent to prison for eight years for burglary. Her mother later remarried. She attended Lindfield
Public School and Hornsby Girls' High School
. She won art awards and a David Jones Drawing Prize, which defrayed the costs of her formal studies at East Sydney Technical College
.
In 1957, aged not yet 16, she met the 17-year-old Brett Whiteley
at his home, where she had been invited by a friend. It is sometimes claimed that this meeting occurred at Jerichos, a Sydney coffee shop known for its bohemian clientele, but the reality was more prosaic. There was an immediate mutual attraction and they soon became lovers. At that time, Brett was attending the life drawing classes at the Julian Ashton
Art School, while working for Lintas Advertising. He took Wendy along to a class, where her drawing proved to be better than his. A short time before their meeting, Brett’s mother Beryl had separated from her husband and moved overseas. Brett was devastated when she refused his entreaties to come home. He was still living with his father Clem Whiteley, and Wendy moved in; she also went to work for Clem's interior design business. As a couple, their sense of style and extravagance was compared with that of Scott
and Zelda Fitzgerald
. Their relationship had extremes of passion right from the start.
In November 1959, Brett was awarded an Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship. He wanted to take Wendy with him, but Clem refused to supply the necessary money; there were quarrels, which resulted in Wendy moving out of the house. She saw Brett off on the boat, and then started working 18 hours a day to earn the money to pay her own way to Europe. Brett arrived in Italy
in February 1960, and Wendy reunited with him in Paris on 14 June. They lived in Florence
for some months, and in 1961 they moved to London
and set up his studio there. In March 1962 his first one-man exhibition, at the Matthiesen Galleries, was a financial success, which prompted them to marry on 27 March, in the Chelsea registry office. They had en extended honeymoon in the south of France
, where his Summer at Sigean had its genesis. At the time, Brett said: "If ever I have a retrospective, it will be a chronological testament to Wendy - to my relationship with her". After their return to London, Brett started on the Bathroom paintings, a major series of nudes celebrating Wendy's form and his domestic happiness.
Wendy worked as a fashion under-buyer for Harvey Nichols
. Wendy and Brett’s daughter Arkie Whiteley
was born in London on 6 November 1964. They returned to Australia in December 1965, living at Whale Beach
, north of Sydney, where Arkie took her first steps.
In 1967 they moved to New York
for Brett to take up a Harkness Fellowship
scholarship. They sailed on the final voyage of the Queen Mary
. They went to the Hotel Chelsea
and purely by chance were given the penthouse apartment. At that time, Arkie was frequently looked after by baby-sitters, who included Janis Joplin
. Brett Whiteley was working feverishly on his paintings, particularly The American Dream, becoming very stressed, and turning to alcohol for relief. Wendy opened a clothes shop in New York City. Brett was very unhappy about this, and threatened to divorce her; he explained that it reminded him too much of his own mother leaving his father as soon as she was financially independent. Wendy called his bluff, and Brett took up with a woman named Constance Abernathy for a few weeks, but he returned to Wendy after Constance fell down an elevator shaft and broke her teeth. Brett had other occasional affairs during this time, and Wendy herself had an affair with Michael Driscoll, whom they had met at the National Art School and who had become their long-time friend. Wendy and Brett were marijuana
users at this time. Prior to her affair, Wendy, Brett and Michael tried heroin together for the first time. While it was intended to be a one-off experience, it ultimately led to total heroin addiction
for both Wendy and Brett. They attended a treatment clinic in England together, but both returned to heroin a few weeks later.
In July 1969 Brett's physical and mental fatigue caused him to abandon work on The American Dream and to quickly leave New York for Fiji
, with his family. They stayed there for five months, living in a small village, mixing with the natives, and far from all communications. They had a rooster, an old car, and some bedding. They decided to stay permanently, living a life of utter simplicity in a tranquil tropical paradise, in the manner of Paul Gauguin
in Tahiti
. They were given two-thirds of an island by the village chief. In November, Brett rented an old barn in Suva
to show off his recent work done in Fiji. At the opening, in conversation with officials and politicians, he naively talked about drugs. The next day the barn was raided, a small quantity of marijuana was found, and he was fined £F50 and the Whiteleys were given a very short time to pack up and leave Fiji.
They returned to Australia, and moved in to the Lavender Bay
home in which Wendy still lives. They had travelled widely, visiting many of the world’s great art museums and exhibitions. Now it was the five-year-old Arkie who said she was sick of moving and losing her friends every time she moved, and she wanted to stay in one place. This made Wendy and Brett decide to settle down in Lavender Bay. Initially they rented one floor of the house, but in 1974 they bought the house outright. The interior of the home was frequently the subject of Brett's paintings, often with Wendy's naked form reclining on a sofa or in the bathtub.
In 1985, Brett bought an abandoned T-shirt factory in Surry Hills
and turned it into a studio away from home. Their tandem heroin addiction continued, and in 1987 they were advised to seek separate treatment; Brett would stay to work in Australia, while Wendy and Arkie went to England. On Wendy's return from England in 1988, clean of heroin, Brett was now in a relationship with Janice Spencer, whom he had met at a Narcotics Anonymous
meeting earlier that year, and was also still using heroin. Wendy refused to share the same house as Brett for fear of becoming trapped in heroin addiction once more, so Brett took up residence in his Surry Hills studio. They were divorced in 1989.
Brett Whiteley died of a drug overdose in 1992, and Arkie died of cancer in 2001. The Surry Hills studio is now the location of the Brett Whiteley Studio, an art museum that was operated initially by Wendy in Brett's memory, but is now owned and managed by the Art Gallery of New South Wales
.
At considerable personal expense, Wendy started to clean up and landscape a large patch of derelict land adjacent to her home in Lavender Bay, owned by the NSW Rail Corporation. It was choked by weeds and overgrown with lantanas, and strewn with old train carriages, abandoned refrigerators, rotting mattresses and broken bottles, and some homeless people sometimes slept there. The Rail Corporation had no interest in doing anything with it, and they raised no objections to her beautifying the area. They even helped by removing the large pieces of junk. Wendy treated the garden like a giant painting, structuring, planting, pruning, moving things around, and letting nature work its own magic. Over 15 years, it has become a noted Sydney landmark and a well-known tourist destination, with random benches in quiet spots, secluded paths, and a spectacular view to the Sydney Harbour Bridge
. A wide variety of birdlife previously unknown to the area has arrived. It has been described as rivalling Claude Monet
’s garden. It is affectionately known by locals as "Wendy’s Secret Garden", although the public have always had free access.
Daughter Arkie helped her mother in this project, and she planned to hold her second wedding ceremony, to Jim Elliott, in the garden. However, her adrenal gland
cancer
intervened, and they married in the house overlooking the garden, only a few weeks before Arkie's death in 2001.
Both Brett and Arkie Whiteley’s ashes are buried in "Wendy’s Secret Garden", but in a location Wendy has not disclosed.
On Australia Day
2009, Wendy Whiteley was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia
(OAM) for "service to the community through the establishment and maintenance of a public garden at Lavender Bay, and as a supporter of the visual arts".
found in Arkie’s favour, but permitted Janice Spencer one painting, a large erotic portrait of herself, Sunday Afternoon, Surry Hills, which Brett had painted in 1988 at the height of their romance. A shortage of funds forced her to sell it in 1995, and it attracted $239,000 at auction. Spencer moved to Byron Bay
and wrote a book The Last Five Years with Brett Whiteley, which was never published. She herself died of a heroin overdose in Brisbane
, Queensland
in August 2000, aged 41.
Arkie’s first marriage, to Christopher Kuhn, ended in divorce. During Arkie’s treatment for adrenal gland cancer and leading up to her second marriage, to Jim Elliott, Wendy and Arkie were now finally able to have a proper mother-daughter relationship. Arkie left Wendy the bulk of the artworks she had inherited from Brett, and those works as well as Wendy’s own collection of Brett's paintings and artefacts became the genesis of the Brett Whiteley Studio. Before her death, Arkie had commenced negotiations with the Art Gallery of New South Wales
for them to take over and manage the studio, and those negotiations were later successfully concluded by Wendy.
Wendy Whiteley has become a well-known figure in Australia’s artistic life. She appears at gallery openings, as a judge at art competitions, gives talks about Brett Whiteley, arranges and curates exhibitions of his work, and presents winners of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
with their prizes, on behalf of the benefactress, Brett's mother Beryl Whiteley OAM.
She was the subject of an ABC
"Australian Story
" program in 2004, and has had magazine articles written about her from time to time.
She is regularly asked to be the subject of a portrait for the Archibald Prize
, a prize that Brett Whiteley won twice, in 1976 and 1978. She usually declines such requests, but has sat three times: for Danelle Bergstrom, Garry Shead
, and most recently for John Phillips in 2008. None of the portraits have won the prize.
On 8 December 2008, Wendy Whiteley was Andrew Denton
's final guest on Enough Rope
(ABC TV
).
She was interviewed by Peter Thompson on Talking Heads (ABC1) on 10 August 2009.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(born 1941) is an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n artist and cultural icon.
She is sometimes described as the "grande dame of the Sydney art scene". She is best known as the "goddess muse" and one-time wife of the artist Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley, AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald Prize...
, and as the mother of their daughter, the actress Arkie Whiteley
Arkie Whiteley
Arkie Deya Whiteley was an Australian actress who appeared in television and films.Arkie Whiteley's parents were the renowned artist Brett Whiteley and his wife Wendy Whiteley...
(1964-2001).
Although Wendy’s life is inextricably intertwined with that of Brett, she has become a notable artistic and cultural figure in her own right, particularly since her ex-husband’s death in 1992. She posed for Brett many times, and his work was strongly influenced by her opinions. Brett always believed that her artistic skills were better than his own, and he relied on her input a great deal. Although they divorced three years before he died, she has control of Brett Whiteley’s estate including the copyright to his works, and she has honoured his memory in the establishment of the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills
Surry Hills, New South Wales
Surry Hills is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Surry Hills is located immediately south-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, which is now owned and managed as an art museum by the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
.
Wendy Whiteley is also known for the restoration and landscaping of a derelict public area in Lavender Bay
Lavender Bay, New South Wales
Lavender Bay is a harbourside suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Lavender Bay is located 3 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council....
, Sydney, which she turned into a "magic garden" and where Brett and Arkie Whiteley’s ashes are buried.
Biography
Wendy Susan Julius was born in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in 1941. She came from a creative, artistic and troubled lineage. Her great-grandfather was Charles Yelverton O’Connor
C. Y. O'Connor
Charles Yelverton O'Connor CMG was an Irish engineer who is best-known for his work in Australia, especially the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme.-Early life:...
, engineer for Fremantle
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
Harbour and the Kalgoorlie Pipeline
Goldfields Water Supply Scheme
The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme is a pipeline and dam project which delivers potable water to communities in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields, particularly Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie...
, who suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
d ten months before the pipeline was opened , . Her grandfather was Sir George Julius
George Julius
Sir George Alfred Julius was the founder of Julius Poole & Gibson Pty Ltd and Automatic Totalisators Ltd, and invented the world's first automatic totalisator.-Early years:...
, the inventor of the totalisator
Tote board
A tote board is a large numeric or alphanumeric display used to convey information, typically at a race track or at a telethon .The term "tote board" comes from the colloquialism for totalizator , the name for the automated...
and co-founder of the CSIRO
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is the national government body for scientific research in Australia...
. A great-aunt, Kate O’Connor, was an eccentric and larger-than-life painter who lived in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
most of her life , .
Her father, George Yelverton Julius, known as "Gentleman George" was thrown out by her mother for infidelity when Wendy was six and she and her sister have little or no memory of him. When Wendy was about 12, she was devastated to read in the newspapers that her father had been sent to prison for eight years for burglary. Her mother later remarried. She attended Lindfield
Lindfield, New South Wales
Lindfield is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Lindfield is 13 kilometres north-west of the Sydney Central Business District in the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council.- Location and history :...
Public School and Hornsby Girls' High School
Hornsby Girls' High School
Hornsby Girls' High School is an academically selective, public high school for girls, located in Hornsby, a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.Founded in 1930, the school's first principal was Sarah Agnes Angus Brewster....
. She won art awards and a David Jones Drawing Prize, which defrayed the costs of her formal studies at East Sydney Technical College
National Art School
The National Art School is an art school in Sydney, Australia. It is a Public Company Limited by Guarantee with a board of directors. It has Institutional Registration and Course Accreditation supported by the DET Higher Education Directorate....
.
In 1957, aged not yet 16, she met the 17-year-old Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley, AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald Prize...
at his home, where she had been invited by a friend. It is sometimes claimed that this meeting occurred at Jerichos, a Sydney coffee shop known for its bohemian clientele, but the reality was more prosaic. There was an immediate mutual attraction and they soon became lovers. At that time, Brett was attending the life drawing classes at the Julian Ashton
Julian Ashton
Julian Rossi Ashton was an Australian artist and teacher, known for his support of the Heidelberg School and for his influential art school in Sydney....
Art School, while working for Lintas Advertising. He took Wendy along to a class, where her drawing proved to be better than his. A short time before their meeting, Brett’s mother Beryl had separated from her husband and moved overseas. Brett was devastated when she refused his entreaties to come home. He was still living with his father Clem Whiteley, and Wendy moved in; she also went to work for Clem's interior design business. As a couple, their sense of style and extravagance was compared with that of Scott
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
and Zelda Fitzgerald
Zelda Fitzgerald
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald , born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper"...
. Their relationship had extremes of passion right from the start.
In November 1959, Brett was awarded an Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship. He wanted to take Wendy with him, but Clem refused to supply the necessary money; there were quarrels, which resulted in Wendy moving out of the house. She saw Brett off on the boat, and then started working 18 hours a day to earn the money to pay her own way to Europe. Brett arrived in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
in February 1960, and Wendy reunited with him in Paris on 14 June. They lived in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
for some months, and in 1961 they moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and set up his studio there. In March 1962 his first one-man exhibition, at the Matthiesen Galleries, was a financial success, which prompted them to marry on 27 March, in the Chelsea registry office. They had en extended honeymoon in the south of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where his Summer at Sigean had its genesis. At the time, Brett said: "If ever I have a retrospective, it will be a chronological testament to Wendy - to my relationship with her". After their return to London, Brett started on the Bathroom paintings, a major series of nudes celebrating Wendy's form and his domestic happiness.
Wendy worked as a fashion under-buyer for Harvey Nichols
Harvey Nichols
Harvey Nichols, founded in 1813, is an upmarket department store chain. Its original store is in London. Founded in 1813 as a linen shop, it sells many international brands of clothing for women and men, fashion accessories, beauty products, wine and food...
. Wendy and Brett’s daughter Arkie Whiteley
Arkie Whiteley
Arkie Deya Whiteley was an Australian actress who appeared in television and films.Arkie Whiteley's parents were the renowned artist Brett Whiteley and his wife Wendy Whiteley...
was born in London on 6 November 1964. They returned to Australia in December 1965, living at Whale Beach
Whale Beach, New South Wales
Whale Beach is a northern beachside suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Whale Beach is located 40 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Pittwater Council, in the Northern Beaches region.At the northern end just off the...
, north of Sydney, where Arkie took her first steps.
In 1967 they moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
for Brett to take up a Harkness Fellowship
Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowships are a programme run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. They were established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several countries to spend time studying in the United States...
scholarship. They sailed on the final voyage of the Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line...
. They went to the Hotel Chelsea
Hotel Chelsea
The Hotel Chelsea, also known as the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea, is a historic New York City hotel and landmark, known primarily for its history of notable residents...
and purely by chance were given the penthouse apartment. At that time, Arkie was frequently looked after by baby-sitters, who included Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
. Brett Whiteley was working feverishly on his paintings, particularly The American Dream, becoming very stressed, and turning to alcohol for relief. Wendy opened a clothes shop in New York City. Brett was very unhappy about this, and threatened to divorce her; he explained that it reminded him too much of his own mother leaving his father as soon as she was financially independent. Wendy called his bluff, and Brett took up with a woman named Constance Abernathy for a few weeks, but he returned to Wendy after Constance fell down an elevator shaft and broke her teeth. Brett had other occasional affairs during this time, and Wendy herself had an affair with Michael Driscoll, whom they had met at the National Art School and who had become their long-time friend. Wendy and Brett were marijuana
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
users at this time. Prior to her affair, Wendy, Brett and Michael tried heroin together for the first time. While it was intended to be a one-off experience, it ultimately led to total heroin addiction
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
for both Wendy and Brett. They attended a treatment clinic in England together, but both returned to heroin a few weeks later.
In July 1969 Brett's physical and mental fatigue caused him to abandon work on The American Dream and to quickly leave New York for Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, with his family. They stayed there for five months, living in a small village, mixing with the natives, and far from all communications. They had a rooster, an old car, and some bedding. They decided to stay permanently, living a life of utter simplicity in a tranquil tropical paradise, in the manner of Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
in Tahiti
Tahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
. They were given two-thirds of an island by the village chief. In November, Brett rented an old barn in Suva
Suva
Suva features a tropical rainforest climate under the Koppen climate classification. The city sees a copious amount of precipitation during the course of the year. Suva averages 3,000 mm of precipitation annually with its driest month, July averaging 125 mm of rain per year. In fact,...
to show off his recent work done in Fiji. At the opening, in conversation with officials and politicians, he naively talked about drugs. The next day the barn was raided, a small quantity of marijuana was found, and he was fined £F50 and the Whiteleys were given a very short time to pack up and leave Fiji.
They returned to Australia, and moved in to the Lavender Bay
Lavender Bay, New South Wales
Lavender Bay is a harbourside suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Lavender Bay is located 3 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council....
home in which Wendy still lives. They had travelled widely, visiting many of the world’s great art museums and exhibitions. Now it was the five-year-old Arkie who said she was sick of moving and losing her friends every time she moved, and she wanted to stay in one place. This made Wendy and Brett decide to settle down in Lavender Bay. Initially they rented one floor of the house, but in 1974 they bought the house outright. The interior of the home was frequently the subject of Brett's paintings, often with Wendy's naked form reclining on a sofa or in the bathtub.
In 1985, Brett bought an abandoned T-shirt factory in Surry Hills
Surry Hills, New South Wales
Surry Hills is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Surry Hills is located immediately south-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
and turned it into a studio away from home. Their tandem heroin addiction continued, and in 1987 they were advised to seek separate treatment; Brett would stay to work in Australia, while Wendy and Arkie went to England. On Wendy's return from England in 1988, clean of heroin, Brett was now in a relationship with Janice Spencer, whom he had met at a Narcotics Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous is a twelve-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous describing itself as a "fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem," and it is the second-largest 12-step organization...
meeting earlier that year, and was also still using heroin. Wendy refused to share the same house as Brett for fear of becoming trapped in heroin addiction once more, so Brett took up residence in his Surry Hills studio. They were divorced in 1989.
Brett Whiteley died of a drug overdose in 1992, and Arkie died of cancer in 2001. The Surry Hills studio is now the location of the Brett Whiteley Studio, an art museum that was operated initially by Wendy in Brett's memory, but is now owned and managed by the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
.
Wendy's Secret Garden
Wendy Whiteley’s own artistic skills were considerable. From the start, Brett always believed her talent was superior to his, she had greater skill at life drawing, and her sense of style and colour exceeded his. He believed she was brilliant and always essential to his career, an astute driving force, a sharp critic and a cleaner-up his messes. However, any thoughts of her own artistic career had long taken second place to her roles as a wife, mother, artist’s model, muse, critic and stylist of aesthetic domestic and studio environments. After Brett’s death she found a unique outlet for her creativity.At considerable personal expense, Wendy started to clean up and landscape a large patch of derelict land adjacent to her home in Lavender Bay, owned by the NSW Rail Corporation. It was choked by weeds and overgrown with lantanas, and strewn with old train carriages, abandoned refrigerators, rotting mattresses and broken bottles, and some homeless people sometimes slept there. The Rail Corporation had no interest in doing anything with it, and they raised no objections to her beautifying the area. They even helped by removing the large pieces of junk. Wendy treated the garden like a giant painting, structuring, planting, pruning, moving things around, and letting nature work its own magic. Over 15 years, it has become a noted Sydney landmark and a well-known tourist destination, with random benches in quiet spots, secluded paths, and a spectacular view to the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic...
. A wide variety of birdlife previously unknown to the area has arrived. It has been described as rivalling Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
’s garden. It is affectionately known by locals as "Wendy’s Secret Garden", although the public have always had free access.
Daughter Arkie helped her mother in this project, and she planned to hold her second wedding ceremony, to Jim Elliott, in the garden. However, her adrenal gland
Adrenal gland
In mammals, the adrenal glands are endocrine glands that sit atop the kidneys; in humans, the right suprarenal gland is triangular shaped, while the left suprarenal gland is semilunar shaped...
cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
intervened, and they married in the house overlooking the garden, only a few weeks before Arkie's death in 2001.
Both Brett and Arkie Whiteley’s ashes are buried in "Wendy’s Secret Garden", but in a location Wendy has not disclosed.
On Australia Day
Australia Day
Australia Day is the official national day of Australia...
2009, Wendy Whiteley was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(OAM) for "service to the community through the establishment and maintenance of a public garden at Lavender Bay, and as a supporter of the visual arts".
Brett Whiteley’s will
Brett’s will became the subject of a major legal dispute. Janice Spencer claimed she had lived with Brett for the last five years of his life, and produced a will leaving the estate to her. (In fact, she had never lived with him in his studio, but maintained a separate residence, and their relationship was closer to two years than to five.) Arkie Whiteley claimed that her father had hand-written a revised will after his divorce, leaving everything to her (Arkie), but that the piece of paper was lost. Ultimately, the New South Wales Supreme CourtSupreme Court of New South Wales
The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales...
found in Arkie’s favour, but permitted Janice Spencer one painting, a large erotic portrait of herself, Sunday Afternoon, Surry Hills, which Brett had painted in 1988 at the height of their romance. A shortage of funds forced her to sell it in 1995, and it attracted $239,000 at auction. Spencer moved to Byron Bay
Byron Bay, New South Wales
Byron Bay is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjacent to the town, is the easternmost point of mainland Australia. At the 2006 Census, the town had a...
and wrote a book The Last Five Years with Brett Whiteley, which was never published. She herself died of a heroin overdose in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
in August 2000, aged 41.
Arkie’s first marriage, to Christopher Kuhn, ended in divorce. During Arkie’s treatment for adrenal gland cancer and leading up to her second marriage, to Jim Elliott, Wendy and Arkie were now finally able to have a proper mother-daughter relationship. Arkie left Wendy the bulk of the artworks she had inherited from Brett, and those works as well as Wendy’s own collection of Brett's paintings and artefacts became the genesis of the Brett Whiteley Studio. Before her death, Arkie had commenced negotiations with the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
for them to take over and manage the studio, and those negotiations were later successfully concluded by Wendy.
Wendy Whiteley has become a well-known figure in Australia’s artistic life. She appears at gallery openings, as a judge at art competitions, gives talks about Brett Whiteley, arranges and curates exhibitions of his work, and presents winners of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
The Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship is an Australian annual art award in honour of the painter Brett Whiteley. The scholarship is administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales....
with their prizes, on behalf of the benefactress, Brett's mother Beryl Whiteley OAM.
She was the subject of an ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
"Australian Story
Australian Story
Australian Story is a national weekly documentary series, produced and broadcast on ABC Television.Since 1996 Australian Story has featured many Australians from diverse backgrounds and reputations...
" program in 2004, and has had magazine articles written about her from time to time.
She is regularly asked to be the subject of a portrait for the Archibald Prize
Archibald Prize
The Archibald Prize is regarded as the most important portraiture prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919...
, a prize that Brett Whiteley won twice, in 1976 and 1978. She usually declines such requests, but has sat three times: for Danelle Bergstrom, Garry Shead
Garry Shead
Garry Shead is an Australian artist and filmmaker who won the Archibald Prize in 1992/93 with a portrait of Tom Thompson, and won the Dobell Prize in 2004 with Colloquy with John Keats....
, and most recently for John Phillips in 2008. None of the portraits have won the prize.
On 8 December 2008, Wendy Whiteley was Andrew Denton
Andrew Denton
Andrew Christopher Denton is an Australian television producer, comedian, Gold Logie-nominated television presenter and former radio host, and was the host of the ABC's weekly television interview program Enough Rope. He is known for his comedy and interviewing technique...
's final guest on Enough Rope
Enough Rope
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton is a television interview show originally broadcast on ABC Television in Australia...
(ABC TV
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
).
She was interviewed by Peter Thompson on Talking Heads (ABC1) on 10 August 2009.
Sources
- Margot HiltonMargot HiltonMargot Hilton is an Australian author.Hilton was born in London and graduated from the University of Leeds. She visited Australia in 1974 for a holiday and decided to stay, becoming an Australian citizen in 1983...
and Graeme BlundellGraeme BlundellGraeme Blundell is an Australian actor, director, producer, writer and biographer.Blundell was born in Melbourne; he grew up in Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne...
: Whiteley: An Unauthorised Life, MacMillan, 1996 - McGrath, Sandra: Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Rushcutters Bay, 1979, revised 1992, reprinted 1995
- Australian Story: Wendy Whiteley, 6 September 2004
- “After the pain, growing anew”, SMG, 19 September 2003
- “How Whiteley Bay view became Selling Point”, SMH, 19 May 2004
- Brett Whiteley Studio
- Brett Whiteley Studio - Life line
- "Dickins and the Rocket Man", The Age, 8 December 2002
- Picture this: Steve Meacham, Brisbane Times, 23 February 2008
- North Sydney Council: Rail Corp Beautification Lease - Wendy Whiteley's Secret Garden
- IMdB – Wendy Whiteley
- IMdB – Arkie Whiteley
- Australian Government: Culture and Recreation Portal
- Ben Hills: A Brush With Fame
- Time Out Sydney: Walkabout: #1 Blues Point Road
- jac bowie pr & events: 2006 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
- Regionale art consultants: More Affordable Fine Art - Why Not a Graphic?
- Blog: Wendy's Secret Garden
- Finally a lease on Wendy's garden
- "The constant gardener", The Age, Good Weekend, 14 October 2006
- "Overdose claims Whiteley’s lover, too", Sydney Morning Herald, 19-20 August 2000, p. 1
- "Doodles from the edge", Benjamin Genocchio, Weekend Australian, 13-14 May 2000