BRETT WHITELEY

Collection of the artist
The Qantas Collection; purchased from the above in 1982

Brett Whiteley, Bonython Art Gallery, Sydney, June - July 1970 
The Qantas Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14-26 November 1995

Elwyn Lynn, 'How Pilgrim in the Slough of Despond sights Paradise', The Bulletin, Sydney, 27 June 1970, p. 47
Sandra McGrath, Brett Whiteley, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1979, pp. 77, 79, 83

When Brett Whiteley painted Opera House it brought together a quintessentially Australian subject and a pre-eminently Australian artist. By the time the work was exhibited in his solo exhibition at the Bonython Gallery in Sydney in 1970, Whiteley had achieved the status of a pop star, the artist-hero in whom genius and outrageous behaviour rubbed shoulders. The exhibition covered his previous three years, of New York, in Fiji, and the critical response to Australia on his return the year before. Sydney artist-critic, James Gleeson, hailed Whiteley as 'brilliant' and wrote in his review: 'He shines as no other Australian artist has ever shone; so much so that by the time he was 25 he was an acknowledged star in the heaven of International Art'. Gleeson described the exhibition as 'a pictured autobiography' – not  'so much a show of individual paintings (none of them have titles) as an exhibition of Whiteley'. ¹ The centrepiece was a huge eighteen-panel painting, The American Dream, 1968-69. Australian works included The Olgas…Soon, 1970, complete with possum tail, jaw bone and boomerangs (now in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia), and a painting of Sydney city and Opera House, as Elwyn Lynn described it, 'on the edge of the continent, ... about to fall into the abyss of history'. Here, a similar image of the Opera House rides yacht-like on the waves of destruction, while in Opera House, its sail-like roof is alternately the jaws and fins of a 'voracious white shark'. ²

In a moment of inspiration Whiteley seized the Australian icon, a building of unsurpassed beauty, whose ingeniously designed roof evokes thoughts of majestic ships in full sail, and subverted its celebration into a powerful and beguiling image of terror and beauty. This paradox, which is played throughout the imagery of the painting, has all the mesmerising fascination of watching something as dangerously beautiful as a shark. Ironically it screams rather than sings, as Whiteley repeats his credo of the Australian passion to destroy that which we admire – of our indulgence in banalities and vulgarisms. His imagery is arresting and biting, built up through paint and collage – of linen, cardboard, a collaged Sydney, a real shell echoing the sail-like shells of the roof, and an inscription referring to Whiteley's admiration of John Cage the avant-garde American composer. Tensions are set up between the real and the illusion, followed by moments of lyrical beauty, as all is watched over by a brilliant blue sky, star-studded, the crescent moon, another echo of the sails. A black shark fin cuts the white waters, for even in the Garden of Eden there was a serpent.

When the Sydney Opera House opened in October 1973 it had long been the focus of national fascination and international interest. Its fabulous design and inspirational architect Jorn Utzon, spiralling costs and political interference were but part of the scenario that kept the building in the public eye. Above all, it was the most beautiful piece of architecture contemporary Australia had seen, with a setting to complement it. It soon established itself as an image of international significance, immediately recognisable as Sydney and Australia. While its fascination for artists might not have been as great as the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the 1920s – it did not pose the question of whether the two spans would meet in the middle – it had its many admirers. William Dobell painted several versions in 1968, and Eric Thake titled his witty 1972 linocut Christmas card 'An Opera House in Every Home'.

1. Gleeson, J., 'A closer look at Whiteley', The Sun-Herald, Sydney, 26 June 1970. 
2. Lynn, E., The Bulletin, 27 June 1970,  p. 47.