MASTERPIECE: Brett Whiteley The Arrival – A Glimpse in the Botanical Gardens 1984

MASTERPIECE: Brett Whiteley The Arrival – A Glimpse in the Botanical Gardens 1984

Smith & Singer is honoured to present Brett Whiteley's The Arrival – A Glimpse in the Botanical Gardens 1984, within our forthcoming private auction on Tuesday 13 October 2020.  

Whiteley is widely and appropriately celebrated as one of Australia’s great cultural identities.  He was both a charismatic artist pop star and a phenomenally gifted draughtsman and painter, whose versatile and expansive oeuvre encompasses a wide range of media and subjects.  The resplendent The Arrival – A Glimpse in the Botanical Gardens 1984, continues the artist’s long-held commitment to, and celebration of, avian iconography within the Australian landscape.  Unlike earlier compositions, where subjects were placed against an anonymous or generic background, here Whiteley places the plump, white-breasted bird in a Moreton Bay Fig tree in The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

Formerly on loan to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and on display at the Brett Whiteley Studio since 2015, the painting hails from the collection of the respected dealer Denis Savill, having formerly been owned by the renowned collector and patron, Dr Peter Elliott AM.

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