Lot 14

Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label verso)
Private collection, Melbourne

Brett Whiteley: Recent paintings, photographs, ceramics and wood carvings from Byron Bay, Marrakesh, Japan, San Gimignano - Tuscany, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1 - 26 March 1990

Sutherland, K., Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonné, Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, vol. 7, cat. no. 4.89

These compelling ink-on-paper drawings by Brett Whiteley (1939-1992), are part of a series of portraits that pay homage to influential cultural figures. These particular works depict the legendary artist Alberto Giacometti and French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, capturing their intensity and introspective nature with Whiteley's signature linework. The series reflects Whiteley's deep admiration for visionary minds across disciplines, extending beyond visual art and philosophy to include celebrated writers and musicians such as William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and Bob Dylan. Through these portraits, Whiteley not only honours these great thinkers but also explores the intellectual forces hat informed his own artistic journey.

"The decision to paint a series of portraits was an intriguingly formalistic way of summarising, honouring, focusing and announcing figures in art, history, letters, philosophy, and family that had influenced his own thinking, or inspired his emotions…Whiteley now felt that the decline of portraiture, and its near elimination from contemporary art, was an indication of mankind's own confused, troubled and technology-dominated world. As he phrased it, Portraiture is in trouble because man is." (1)

(1) McGrath S., Brett Whitely, Bay Books,1988, p.113

© Brett Whiteley/Copyright Agency, 2025