Deutscher and Hackett

Drawing was the cornerstone of Brett Whiteley’s artistic practice and many of his greatest paintings were accompanied by a series of works on paper featuring alternate compositional emphases. With a confident flourish, Whiteley’s drawings were spontaneous appraisals of the artist’s innermost thoughts and visions, now revealing precious insights into his approach to artmaking. Park from the Window, Lavender Bay, c.1975 – 76, is a key large work on paper from Whiteley’s first year in their house on the foreshore of Sydney’s Lavender Bay. The house’s panoramic views on to the harbour provided the artist with a new format, which he called ‘windowscapes’, and through which he could claim this patch of Sydney as his own private domain. With close views of verdant gardens, atmospheric rain-soaked harbour views, and stepped rows of rooftops, Whiteley found a restorative change of pace. Far from the political and philosophical angst of his earlier works, Nancy Borlase noted, Whiteley’s works from this period were imbued with contemplative quality, ‘a fresh appraisal of nature, reflecting a domestic tranquillity and a lifestyle in harmony with the bay.’¹ Whiteley described this new impetus as ‘recording… points of optical ecstasy, where romanticism and optimism overshadow any form of menace and foreboding’.²

The large vertical south-facing windows of Whiteley’s sitting roomstudio offered breathtaking views either over the stately palms of Clark Park, or in the opposite direction, on the harbour with a glimpse of the Harbour Bridge or Opera House. Park from the Window, Lavender Bay features a dense charcoal depiction of the fences and foliage of the park, crowned by a towering skyline of the central business district and naïve outlined clouds. Presenting the window as a clear vignette within the image was an artistic device that Whiteley had been using for some years. It allowed him to contain and frame the view, distancing himself from it while also providing space in the foreground to imply his physical presence. 

A delicate sequence of ink studies of individual leaves, pinned to a drawing board, is placed in the foreground of this work, alongside a tabletop displaying an arsenal of artist’s tools. Amusingly, Whiteley has drawn a quill and inkpot in ink, a pencil with sharp lead lines and a stick of willow charcoal with a wide and wonky mark of the medium itself. This self-reflexive format was first developed within one of Whiteley’s notebooks, in which he had also noted beside each medium a list of its qualities, such as ‘the great unalterable’ (ink), ‘vulnerable to making mistakes by itself’ (charcoal) and ‘quick + daring + precise’ (pencil).³
 
Essentially addressing the nature and process of drawing the landscape en plein air, Park from the Window, Lavender Bay presents a continuation of Whiteley’s Fijian quest for contemplative peace within the (tropical) landscape. Now, Whiteley, in an homage to Matisse, was recording these stunning views looking out from calm interior of his own home. Park from the Window relates to major paintings as Park Under Sunlight, 1976, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria and prefigures his popular editioned prints of 1978 – 1980, such as Orange Fruit Dove in Clark Park and Garden in Sanur (Bali), in which variegated leaves are fanned out in the foreground of a landscape view. 

1. Borlase, N., ‘An Unexpected Whiteley’, The Bulletin, Sydney, 23 November 1974, p. 57 
2. McGrath, S., Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Sydney, 1979, p. 168 
3. Drawing and How to Get it On, 1975, illus. in McGrath, ibid., p. 183 

LUCIE REEVES-SMITH