Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing

Description

Named among the best books of 2016 in Readings, the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald Written with unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, and handsomely illustrated with classic Brett Whiteley artworks, rare notebook sketches and candid family photos, this acclaimed biography reveals for the first time the full portrait of Australia's most celebrated artist.

Ashleigh Wilson is the author of Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing (2016) and On Artists (2019). He was a journalist and editor for more than two decades, based in Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin, and won a Walkley Award for a series on unethical behaviour in the Aboriginal art industry. Wilson lives with his partner, a designer, and their son, and works at the Sydney Opera House.

'This new book is an engrossing look at the life, artistic development and person behind the enfant terrible of the spotlight.' * Readings, Best Art & Design Books of 2016 * 'Ashleigh Wilson's new telling of Whiteley is a remarkable exercise in sustained authorial discipline...Wilson has given Whiteley the biography he deserves. Accommodating, even forgiving on occasion, but never indulgent. Engaged and attentive, unaffectedly interested in the artist, but not uncritical.' * Sydney Morning Herald, Best Books of 2016 * 'A full-dress life of Whiteley that speeds and soars and never ceases to do homage to the colossal confrontation and contradiction the artist represents...Wilson has written that rarest of things, a 400-page biography that is hard to put down...[It] will make you weep for this exasperation of a man and hunger for his art.' * Australian, Best Books of 2016 * 'Ashleigh Wilson has produced an intriguing, absorbing and assured account of Brett Whiteley's life and work'. -- Mark Knopfler 'With relentless precision, Ashleigh Wilson has provided a peerless grasp of the life and genius of Brett Whiteley. This storied journey of one of Australia's most mercurial twentieth-century artists will be impossible for the reader to put aside until it is finished. It is the dispassionate biography Whiteley has long needed: a career clarified from the brilliant clouds of myth.' -- Barry Pearce, Emeritus Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of NSW 'An essential and invaluable resource for any Whiteley scholar...Wilson's achievement is considerable...Ashleigh Wilson's Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing is a benchmark publication in Whiteley studies.' * Sydney Review of Books * 'For those readers who delight in much of Whiteley's best work, this book is essential reading...Neither hagiography nor hatchet job, Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing is a clear-eyed account of an artist whose output was vast, if uneven, and whose legacy looms large in the history of modern art. Ashleigh Wilson provides an object lesson in writing the life of an artist.' * Australian Book Review * 'A vivid portrait...Sturdy and diligently researched.' * Herald Sun * '[Wilson brings] his subject to life in a fast-paced, thrilling way...Clever selection of detail...An excellent biography.' * Books+Publishing * 'A fast-paced, well-researched biography...Wilson traces the development of Whiteley's practice with extraordinary detail, revealing how travel, social issues, music and drugs (particularly heroin) influenced his art...An absorbing and intimate biography of a passionate yet volatile artist.' * Big Issue * 'The pages fly by in a way that's more reminiscent of a thriller than a comprehensive biography. You'll be left breathless and exasperated by the life of this amazing artist.' * Look Magazine * 'Wilson's masterly biog captures an Aussie Icarus in full flight...It's all there, and yet dealt with in a judicious manner rather than through a desire to sensationalise.' * Limelight * 'A dense and absorbing chronology of the artist's life.' * Listener NZ * 'Ashleigh Wilson's biography of Brett Whiteley is hard to put down. The narrative hums along beautifully, allowing readers a rare insight into Whiteley's complex genius. A colossal undertaking, helped by extraordinary access. Wilson has delivered readers-and history-an absorbing, detailed and fascinating read.' * Walkley Magazine * 'Unlikely to be surpassed for its richness of detail, cast of characters and sheer narrative drive-all achieved without a trace of novelistic flourish.' * West Australian * 'Ashleigh Wilson methodically tracks this mercurial artist from early family days to his final years-a motley of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, and importantly, art.' * Art Almanac *