 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2013) |
Art, Life, and the other thing is an Archibald Prize-winning 1978 painting by Australian artist Brett Whiteley [1] [2] which combines three different media in a triptych.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2013) |
Art, Life, and the other thing is an Archibald Prize-winning 1978 painting by Australian artist Brett Whiteley [1] [2] which combines three different media in a triptych.
The middle canvas depicts Brett Whiteley himself standing side-on to the onlooker, his head in motion and his hands grasping. In one hand, a black-and-white image of Joshua Smith by William Dobell; in the other, a paint brush, as he is painting this picture. His body runs vertically to the canvas with the left hand side being almost empty. The features of the figure are disoriented and exaggerated especially in the head, where Whiteley is showing movement. Because of this movement, the head appears very abstract. The arms, legs and torso are unrealistically long and lanky. The body is clothed in a two-piece outfit, all in white. As the head turns it becomes more real and solid, going from a mass of blurred lines on the left to being almost photo-realistic on the right. To add to the realism, Whiteley had added his own hair to the piece on the right-hand side. The background colour is light orange.
The William Dobell painting. Mr Joshua Smith , won the 1943 Archibald Prize.
The third and last component of the triptych is a small headshot photograph of Brett Whiteley himself. It is on the far right, in the top-left corner of the piece and is the smallest component. The picture is cut off just below Whiteley's chin. The subject is smiling and in a thoughtful expression, his eyes are focused on something past the viewer, to our right (his left). His hair looks messy, revealing it not to be a formal photograph. The background colour is light orange.
The left-hand part of the triptych is a medium-sized oil painting on canvas done in warm, earthy colours, such as browns, oranges, yellows and reds. It depicts a crazed baboon, shackled and chained with cuts and wounds caused by the nails sticking into its hands and wrists. The baboon is clearly in motion, struggling with the extreme pain and torment. Its eyes are wild and its mouth is gaping. The baboon occupies most of the painting, but it is not a real-to-life/realistic painting, but distorted to accentuate its features. In the top left-hand corner there is a hand, palm outstretched, offering the baboon a syringe. The baboon's hands are human. There is nothing in the background.
This section is probably the most revealing on Brett Whiteley's life at the time. The tormented baboon is the symbolisation of his battle with drug addiction, in particular, heroin. The nails in its hands and the frenzied desperation of the creatures canvas in this part is the largest in size.
This work is controversial, rich and portrays many aspects of the painter. Brett Whiteley uses many media, such as: painting, photography, drawing, sculpture and even melds his own hair onto the piece. His drawing is exaggerated with very expressive features and the artist places a large emphasis on the visualization of motion. This is evident in this piece and in his other works.
(Triptych) Oil, glass eye, hair, pen and ink on cardboard, plaster, photography, oil, dried PVA, cigarette butts, hypodermic syringe on board, 90.4 x 77.2, 230 x 122, 31.1 x 31.1 cm; signed and dated in black ink 1.r. 'brett Whiteley 1978', signed verso in black oil on masking tape 'BRETT WHITELEY'
Inscriptions: u.r. in black ink 'rage/rage/against the dying of the light/ DYLAN THOMAS'. Inscribed 2nd panel on verso on paper 'hanging instruction for Art, Life and The Other Thing'
Exhibited: 'Archibald, Wynne and Sulman', The Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1978 awarded Archibald Prize. Greenhill Galleries, Perth, 1987, not catalogued
Literature: Waldmann 1982, pp. 213–36. Hunt 1994.
Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased by the New South Wales State Government 1994, transferred to the Gallery 1998
Claude Lorrain was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is one of the earliest important artists, apart from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting. His landscapes are usually turned into the more prestigious genre of history paintings by the addition of a few small figures, typically representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology.
The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919. It is administered by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and awarded for "the best portrait, preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics, painted by an artist resident in Australia during the twelve months preceding the date fixed by the trustees for sending in the pictures". The Archibald Prize has been awarded annually since 1921 and since July 2015 the prize has been AU$100,000.
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, Wynne and Sulman prizes. He held many exhibitions, and lived and painted in Australia as well as Italy, England, Fiji and the United States.
Sir William Dobell was an Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named in his honour.
The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. As one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. Now held concurrently with the Sir John Sulman Prize and the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.
Garry Shead is an Australian artist and filmmaker. His paintings are in many galleries in Australia and overseas, and he has won several awards, including the Archibald Prize in 1992. He has spent time in Japan, Papua New Guinea, France, Austria, and Hungary, returning to Australia in the 1980s.
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion is a 1944 triptych painted by the Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon. The canvasses are based on the Eumenides—or Furies—of Aeschylus's Oresteia, and depict three writhing anthropomorphic creatures set against a flat burnt orange background. It was executed in oil paint and pastel on Sundeala fibre board and completed within two weeks. The triptych summarises themes explored in Bacon's previous work, including his examination of Picasso's biomorphs and his interpretations of the Crucifixion and the Greek Furies. Bacon did not realise his original intention to paint a large crucifixion scene and place the figures at the foot of the cross.
William Frederick Yeames was a British painter best known for his oil-on-canvas "And When Did You Last See Your Father?", which depicts the son of a Royalist being questioned by Parliamentarians during the English Civil War.
Wendy Susan Whiteley is best known as the former wife of the Australian artist Brett Whiteley, and as the mother of their daughter, actress Arkie Whiteley (1964–2001). She has become a notable cultural figure, particularly since her ex-husband's death in 1992. She posed for Brett many times. Although they divorced three years before he died, she has control of Brett Whiteley's estate including the copyright to his works. She played an important role in the establishment of the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills, New South Wales which is now owned and managed as an art museum by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The Last Judgement is a triptych of oil paintings by the British artist John Martin, created in 1851–1853. The work comprises three separate paintings on a theme of the end of the world, inspired by the Book of Revelation. The paintings, The Plains of Heaven, The Last Judgement, and The Great Day of His Wrath, are generally considered to be among Martin's most important works, and have been described by some art critics as his masterpiece.
Three Studies of Lucian Freud is a 1969 oil-on-canvas triptych by the Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon, depicting artist Lucian Freud. It was sold in November 2013 for US$142.4 million, which at the time was the highest price attained at auction for a work of art when not factoring in inflation. That record was surpassed in May 2015 by Version O of Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger series.
The Travelling Companions is an 1862 oil-on-canvas painting by British artist Augustus Leopold Egg.
Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase is an oil painting on canvas created by the post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh in Paris, 1887. The painting is now part of the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France. This work was made at a time of the life of Van Gogh when he first encountered influences from Impressionists and became aware of light and color, implementing it in his paintings. This painting presages some of his most famous subsequent works, and stands out from other still lifes because of the implementation of mixed techniques and complementary colors.
Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe is a 1968 oil-on-canvas painting by the Irish-born, English artist Francis Bacon. It is the second of two similarly titled paintings based on nude photographs of his close friend Henrietta Moraes, who is shown in a reclining position on a bed, themselves part of a wider series of collapsed figures on beds that began with the 1963 triptych Lying Figure. This later version is widely considered the more successful of the two panels.
The Julian Ashton Art School was established by Julian Ashton in 1890 as the "Academy Julian", has been an influential art school in Australia. For a long time it was known as the Sydney Art School.
Mr Joshua Smith, also known as Portrait of an Artist (Joshua Smith), is a 1943 painting by Australian artist William Dobell. The painting is a portrait of Joshua Smith, an artist and friend of Dobell. The painting was awarded the Archibald Prize in 1943. The painting took a modernist approach to portraiture; a break with the realism favoured to that date by Archibald Prize entrants.
[I was] trying to create something, instead of copying something. To me, a sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is living in itself, regardless of its subject. So long as people expect paintings to be simply coloured photographs they get no individuality and in the case of portraits, no characterisation. The real artist is striving to depict his subject’s character and to stress the caricature, but at least it is art which is alive.
Proposal for landscaped cosmos is a 2010 painting by Australian artist Sam Leach. The work "heavily references" a 1660 painting by Dutch master Adam Pynacker, Boatmen Moored on the Shore of an Italian Lake.
Summer at Carcoar is a 1977 painting by Australian artist Brett Whiteley. The painting was awarded in the Wynne Prize in 1978, the same year that Whiteley also won the Archibald Prize with Art, Life and the other thing and the Sulman Prize with Yellow nude - the only artist to be awarded all three prizes in the one year. The painting depicts the landscape around the town of Carcoar, in the Central West of New South Wales.
the line of the river bisects the painting from top to bottom; smaller arabesques appear here, too, in the outlines of hills in the top left hand corner or in the line of flight of a tiny bee halfway down on the right, visible only on close inspection [...] This is a landscape in drought. Only a narrow stream of greenish water runs between the river's sandy beds; dry grass covers the plains on both sides. But, amid this desiccation, there are flashes of life. Lush puddles of colour collect on the banks of river, in the dripping yellow trees or the petals of flowers. Birds, some of them cut out from magazines and stuck on to the painting, call out from rocks and fence posts.
Brett Whiteley House is a heritage-listed arts and crafts studio and residence in Lavender Bay, North Sydney Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was built during 1905 by Henry Green. It is also known as Brett Whiteley House and Visual Curtilage and Lochgyle. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 23 March 2018.