Dire Straits’ double album, Alchemy Live used part of Whiteley’s painting, Alchemy.
It’s not fair: I was left utterly shattered when I was denied a ride to SAM's grand opening of the Brett Whiteley exhibition last Friday evening.
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You’d think I was some ill-trained mutt likely to pee on a sculpture or bark at a painting that frightened him. Whiteley painted many arresting images - but I’m made of sterner stuff than that.
My all-time favourite Whiteley piece is his mesmerising 'Alchemy', which graced the cover of Dire Straits' 1984 double album, 'Alchemy Live'. That iconic CD cover has been a lurking presence ever since I was born.
The Boss became a fan of Dire Straits when it was the stand-out band playing what he called “proper music” during the otherwise forgettable punk rock era of the 1970s and 80s: Dire Straits drew on country, folk, blues rock and jazz, led by the vocalist and gifted guitarist, Mark Knopfler.
It so happened that Whiteley and Knopfler were long-time mates – Whiteley spent a lot of time with Knopfler after his divorce from Wendy (who turned up at SAM to speak on Friday night) back in 1989.
Alchemy is a vivid representation of Whiteley's experimental phase, where he sought inspiration through unconventional means - a path that eventually led to his untimely passing at 53.
Whiteley’s prodigious talent had led him to Europe on a scholarship in 1960, aged just 21. The following year, his Untitled Red Painting was bought by London’s Tate Gallery - and Whiteley remains the youngest painter ever to have a work bought by the Tate.
Whiteley married Wendy in London in 1962. They left for New York on a Harkness Fellowship in 1967, staying at The Chelsea Hotel, where he befriended musicians including Jimmi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan, as well as Knopfler.
They returned to Sydney after a brief stint in Fiji in the mid-1970s and settled in a studio warehouse in Lavender Bay, where they had a view over the harbour. Many of his famous works were painted here, often using the deep ultramarine blue that Whiteley told his biographer had an ecstasy-like effect on his nervous system.
SAM’s Inside The Studio exhibition includes a number of these. You can see his well-known painting of Sydney harbour, Balcony 2, and his winning self-portrait in the 1976 Archibald Prize, which has his face reflected in a hand mirror at the bottom of the painting.
It’s a disarming and haunting face, a presage of his heroin addiction at the time.
SAM is the only Victorian gallery to host the exhibition, which is drawn from the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Brett Whiteley studio. It presents a selection of his works in various media, including painting, drawings, sculpture, photography, collage and ceramics.
It’s free, but you need to book a ticket, and it is likely to get busy. The Boss says it’s worth seeing, and he’s going back for a longer look. I will have to take his word for it. Woof!
Whiteley’s Untitled Red Painting (1960) in Abstract Expressionism style, was purchased by the Tate Gallery, London, when he was 22.
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