The Lavender Bay home of Wendy Whiteley will be sold after her death and her collection of Brett Whiteley artworks donated to the Art Gallery of NSW in an “extraordinary” cultural gift to the state of NSW.
The promised bequest is worth more than $100 million, among the largest single donations to the gallery in its 151-year history, director Michael Brand has announced.
Wendy Whiteley: “It doesn’t make sense to turn the house into another museum.” Credit:Louie Douvis
“This gift is yet another example of what an outstanding citizen of our harbour city Wendy Whiteley is, and why she continues to be so admired and revered,” Brand said.
Almost 2000 artworks, drawn from across the breadth of Brett Whiteley’s celebrated career, will be left jointly to the Art Gallery and the Brett Whiteley Foundation.
The heritage-listed home where Wendy Whiteley has lived since 1969 will not, however, be preserved in public ownership. Rather, Wendy, aged 81, has instructed it be sold upon her death with the proceeds placed in trust to secure the future of the collection and the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills, dedicated to showcasing the artist’s practice and oeuvre.
“This house needs a family again. It would be lovely to think of a creative family but it would be enough if they loved it, and lived in it.”
Wendy Whiteley
“It doesn’t make any sense to turn [the house] into another museum,” Wendy told The Sydney Morning Herald. “It would be almost impossible to run it as a museum, having knowledge of what it costs to do this kind of thing. This house needs a family again. It would be lovely to think of a creative family but it would be enough if they loved it, and lived in it.
“I would hope they would keep an eye on the garden and hassle the council or whoever’s in charge if it starts to fall apart. I imagine I’m going to be here until, you know, they take me out in a coffin. Long ago I gave up taking anything for granted, like health or longevity.”
“The house is my special place, along with the garden and the studio. All have expanded my opportunity to lead a creative life. That’s what I’d like for others through this bequest.”
The Wendy and Arkie Whiteley Bequest honours in name and spirit the couple’s daughter Arkie, who died in 2001 from cancer, aged just 37, nine years after her father. With the passing of Arkie in 2001, Wendy became the sole custodian of the collection and her former husband’s legacy.
“Certainly this is Brett’s legacy, but it is also mine and my daughter’s because we made it happen,” Wendy said.
Wendy and Brett Whiteley were married for 32 years after meeting as teenagers, a couple who personified the Bohemian spirit and became darlings of the global art scene.
One Walker Street became home to the Whiteleys upon their return to Sydney from New York, via Fiji. The couple’s outlook over Lavender Bay features famously in Brett Whiteley’s major works including the Archibald Prize-winning Self portrait in the studio 1976, his Sir John Sulman Prize-winning Interior with time past 1976, and The jacaranda tree (on Sydney Harbour) 1977.
The significance of the home’s view and setting were recognised with state heritage listing in 2018, along with the house and former studio, and parts of a waterfront oasis that Wendy Whiteley has transformed from derelict railway land.
Proceeds from the future sale of the Lavender Bay home will contribute towards the management and conservation of the collection, many items on current loan to the Art Gallery of NSW. It will also support management of the Surry Hills studio, exhibitions, regional tours and public and education programs.
Wendy Whiteley on the balcony of the heritage-listed Lavender Bay home. Credit:Jessica Hromas
Brett Whiteley bought the Raper St warehouse in 1985 and converted it into a studio. After his death in 1992, it was purchased by the NSW government and ownership transferred to the Art Gallery.
As one of the few artist studios open to the Australian public, Wendy regards the Brett Whiteley Studio as an important source of inspiration for young artists and a corrective to her ex-husband’s rock star reputation. “That’s where his real life was,” she said.
The Art Gallery will be the repository for the Whiteley archives, containing papers and letters significant to the couple’s life and art practice, which Whiteley has been progressively bringing together for at least two years.
Whiteley said it was her wish that the bequest inspire a creative life and provide more opportunities for young artists to experience Whiteley’s art.
“When we were really young, and that’s the ’50s we are talking about, the support for young artists was minimal,” she said.
“You would go to the Art Gallery of NSW in order to get what was the most important support of all and that was inspiration and the feeling that it was all possible.”
Chair of the Brett Whiteley studio Samantha Meers said Wendy had made an extraordinarily generous gift in support of a remarkable space.
“It is not only an opportunity to display Brett’s work where much of it was made, it also allows visitors access to the broader act of art making, educating emerging artists and the public about what can, at times, be a mysterious and solitary process.”
Major artists’ gifts to the nation
- John Kaldor’s gift of 260 works of contemporary art in 2008, valued then at $35 million, included pieces by Christo, Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Sol LeWitt, Gilbert & George, Richard Long, Carl Andre and Andreas Gursky.
- Tweed River Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah received a million-dollar bequest in 2011 from Margaret Olley to build a replica of the beloved painter’s home studio decorated with her own works.
- In 1993 Paul Keating accepts Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s gift to the Australian people of their south coast property of Bundanon, and a collection of the artist’s works along with those of Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Charles Blackman and others.
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2022-06-19 19:30:00Z
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