Wendy Whiteley's second gift: 'The time has come to give women a little attention'

Binns once recalled that the young women studying at East Sydney Tech weren’t as promising as some of the boys. Whiteley said it was a common idea in the late 1950s that women should be models or inspiration. Then, as it is now, NAS attracted a very large group of women for small studio-based model classes and intensive tutoring.

It was at art school that Wendy was introduced to Brett Whiteley, who worked as a commercial artist for an advertising agency and attended the sketch club and life drawing classes at the Julian Ashton School of the Arts.

Shortly after their meeting, Wendy ran away from home and moved into a flat in Kirribilli with a boyfriend to live the “bohemian life”. “I will sew this loose dress, and mine will be covered in paint. I will go barefoot and march through City Hall. It’s all harmless.”

East Sydney Technical College in the 1960s at the site of Old Darlinghurst Goal before its name changed. Credit:National Art School

From high school art is “the thing I like the most and applaud the most too”.

Although, she has no real desire to do it every day: “I’m not talentless, but I don’t have the determination that I might have a few generations later, as women do today. [If I had]my relationship with Brett won’t last five minutes.”

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Wendy dropped out of art school after a year and, for a time, studied interior design with Peter Travis at night. He tried typing school but lasted “three days because Brett would pop his head out and start making noises and throwing things through the window”. His debauchery cost him his delivery job at the Lindfield Cinema as well.

Wendy then works with Brett’s father, Clem, in his interior design business in Gordon to save on tickets to join Brett in Italy. At the age of 20, he won the Italian Government Travel Arts Scholarship. It didn’t occur to him that he could also propose.

When the couple settled back in Lavender Bay years later, he met Travis who reprimanded him for not continuing his painting.

“I honestly never really thought about it,” he said. “It’s not a big and tough decision. We are so busy traveling, we go everywhere together. Brett was painting in a one-room studio. And I didn’t think, ‘Oh my God, my God, I should have painted’.

Wendy Whiteley with Steven Alderton, chief executive of the National School of the Arts.

“I was having a great time seeing museums and great historical works and wandering the streets of Italy, Paris and London.”

Later, he directed his artistic passion towards the rehabilitation of the abandoned railroad yard known as Wendy’s Secret Garden. “I never thought of art as a hobby and I hated mediocrity,” he said. “I would be so impatient with myself if I just made mediocre things. Whatever I do, I want to do well.”

National School of the Arts Director and CEO Steven Alderton thanked Whiteley on behalf of a talented woman who would benefit from her generosity.

Wendy Whiteley said the time had come “for women to be given a little attention”.Credit:Louie Douvis

“This is a tribute to the life-changing effect this school has had on Wendy herself, and as we celebrate 100 years of making art at the historic Darlinghurst Prison site after moving here in 1922.

“This blessing offers a huge boost to our next generation of new artists, as they begin their careers.”

Whiteley doesn’t think an artist can be taught but you can be taught the technique you need. An artist, he says, ideally needs a combination of talent, visual intelligence, determination, and “a special kind of grit” to take criticism.

The Whiteley Prize equals the $500,000 donation made three years ago by the Margaret Olley Art Trust to the National Art School. This is considered the greatest single legacy to the school in living memory.

“I just hope it will help someone,” Whiteley said. “The time has come for women to be given a little attention.”

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