As You Drive into Bob's Farm at Blainey [sic] 1991

BRETT WHITELEY (1939-1992)

As You Drive into Bob's Farm at Blainey [sic] 1991

mixed media on paper on board
60.5 x 92.0 cm
signed and inscribed lower right: "as you drive into/ Bob's farm at Blainey"[sic] brett whiteley
signed, dated and inscribed on backing verso: Bob's farm/ 1991/ brett whiteley

Provenance:
Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso)
Private collection, Melbourne

Estimate: $90000 - 120000

Result Hammer: $115000

This picture was painted in 1991, one year before Whiteley’s tragic drug overdose which ended his life. The small town of Blayney featured in this work is located in the Central West of New South Wales, close to Bathurst. The farm in this work belonged to Brett’s sister, Frannie Hopkirk, and her partner, Bob. Brett would visit often and found solace in the familiarity of the surrounding landscape. Brett became what Frannie called ‘the chronologist of the golden paddocks, sensual hills and willow strewn rivers of the Central West. ‘1

 Whiteley developed a love/hate relationship with the region beginning in 1948 when his parents, Clem and Beryl Whiteley, enrolled their nine-year-old son as a boarder at The Scots School in Bathurst. The experience of boarding school was a traumatic one for Whiteley and something for which he never forgave his parents. While his dislike of the drab food and the teachers endured, he developed a love for the local landscape and the seasonal changes which made him feel close to the earth, a feeling that one did not get living in the city.  

The unique beauty of the Central West would continue to draw Whiteley back throughout his life: whenever he needed an infusion of inspiration, this is where he would find it. Whiteley had a true depth of understanding for the seasonal colours that would transform the trees and valleys, the light that would illuminate the paddocks during summer and cast long shadows across the plains throughout winter.

As you Drive into Bob’s Farm at Blainey [sic] 1991 displays the subdued palette of Blayney during autumn – the parched, rolling hills and poplars devoid of greenery. The right-hand side of the work shows a river gently undulating between willows and boulders with a large green paddock adjacent. To the left of the work, Whiteley has depicted the pastoral element of the farm: the brown and green rows of produce ready to be harvested and a grazing flock of sheep.

 1991 was also the year Brett Whiteley was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia. This award recognised the immense contribution the artist had made to the history of Australian art. The incredibly vast body of work produced by Whiteley demonstrates the depth of his artistic ability but also his ambition and desire to achieve success and acceptance as an artist. The last few years of Whiteley’s life saw him produce some of his best landscapes, according to Barry Pearce, ‘In pure landscape genre particularly, Whiteley reached the most intense level of ecstasy it seemed conceivable, and even then yearned to go beyond’.2

 Footnotes:

1. Hopkirk, F., Brett Whiteley 1958 – 1989, Orange Regional Gallery, 14 April – 13 May 1990, exhibition catalogue p.7

2. Pearce, B. Brett Whiteley: 9 shades, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, p.7

Caroline Jones