After more than two years of major building upgrades, the Brett Whiteley Studio will reopen this Saturday, welcoming visitors back with a brand-new exhibition.
Widely regarded as one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, Sydney-born Brett Whiteley gained national and international recognition for his bold and expressive paintings, sculptures and graphic works.
You’ll recognise Sydney in many of Whiteley’s works, from the deep blues of the harbour to the bikini-clad figures of Bondi Beach, but his subjects stretched far beyond the city, capturing everything from the streets of New York and Paris to Australia’s distinctive wildlife.
While Whiteley’s work hangs in galleries around the world, few people realise you can also step inside the very place where much of it was created, right here in Sydney.
In 1985, Whiteley bought a former T-shirt factory in Surry Hills, eventually transforming the two-storey warehouse into a studio and exhibition space. He lived and worked there until his untimely death in 1992.
Today, the remarkably preserved studio operates as a time capsule, offering an intimate glimpse into Whiteley’s creative world.
Tucked away off an unassuming backstreet, the artist’s former home and studio has undergone renovations over the last two years and will reopen to the public this Saturday.
We took a first look inside the newly renovated studio ahead of its reopening and heard from Wendy Whiteley about the return of this much-loved cultural space.
A first look at the revitalised Brett Whiteley Studio
Dr Peter Tonkin, the Project Director of the revitalisation of the Brett Whiteley Studio, said that the Art Gallery of NSW had three requests when briefing him: the space must be “wheelchair accessible”, have air conditioning that they could run at night “without disturbing the neighbours” and a “new roof that doesn’t leak”.
“That sounds really straightforward,” he laughed, before explaining that achieving those changes required “reconstructing the whole building.”
He tells us that there was no roof on the studio building for a whole year, and that the builders had to take painstaking care to protect Brett’s precious graffitied walls and paint-splattered floors.
Upstairs, Whiteley’s studio remains frozen in time, with the renovations carefully preserving the authenticity and remarkable intimacy of the space. Senior Curator Beatrice Gralton kept describing the studio as “unguarded”, and it’s easy to see why. Rather than feeling like a museum, it feels as though you’ve been invited into Whiteley’s home, free to browse his works, his books, his record collection.
Trinkets, glasses, shells and other items are strewn on desks. Photographs capturing friends and personal moments of Brett’s life are stuck to the walls. His graffiti includes quotes like “Great men are stupid” and “As life is meaningless… You might as well make it extraordinary!”
The upstairs and downstairs spaces offer two very different experiences. Upstairs, Whiteley’s studio remains an intimate time capsule, while downstairs, the new opening exhibition, Brett Whiteley: Coming Home, brings together some of his most celebrated works, from the 1976 Self-portrait in the Studio to the monumental 16-metre-wide Alchemy.
While the downstairs gallery is carefully curated like any exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, upstairs remains authentically messy, domestic and personal; it’s this rare glimpse into Whiteley’s everyday life that makes the studio unlike any other museum experience. Nowhere else in the world would be able to present Brett’s works and collections like this.
Wendy Whiteley on the revitalised studio
“The question I’m asked over and over again is, ‘how do I think Brett would feel?'” said Wendy Whiteley, Brett’s former wife and arts patron.
“The short answer to that is that I think he’d be really pleased with what we’ve done, very happy, and if he isn’t, well, tough sh*t!”
Wendy was integral to the revitalisation of the studio. Gralton stated that “she’s been so invested in the studio… down to every bolt, every turn, every handle, every skirting board… she sees it all, you can’t get anything past her!”
She also said that Wendy had a “physical reaction whenever she saw someone with a laser level”.
“The floors of the studio have always been really crooked, so we’ve always hung everything by eye. And now the floors are perfectly straight, but she doesn’t care. She said to the art handlers, ‘Get rid of that thing! Chuck it away! We’re going to hang everything by eye, that’s how we do it in the studio!'”
Wendy’s care and knowledge of the space has been essential for keeping its authenticity throughout the renovation.
She said, “I didn’t want it to look like the building had been taken over by a bunch of bureaucrats and compliance laws, which I fought the whole way”.
“We’ve all been working very hard to bring Brett back into the building… for me, I just feel like he’s back again, well and truly in this building.”
Discover another Whiteley Sydney landmark
The Brett Whiteley Studio isn’t the only free space in Sydney under the Whiteley name. Wendy also created her own special sanctuary in Lavender Bay, at the foot of her private home. Known as Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden, the space is a popular spot for visitors to picnic, relax and explore.
After the death of Brett in 1992 and the loss of her daughter, Arkie, in 2001, Wendy Whiteley channelled her grief into transforming a neglected patch of public land through guerrilla gardening. She cleared away mountains of rubbish, hacked through blackberry vines and hauled out discarded mattresses, rusted refrigerators and other debris.
Over the following years, Whiteley painstakingly restored the site, planting, pruning and nurturing it back to life. Alongside her gardening team, she introduced exotic ferns and native plants while clearing the overgrowth to reveal the site’s magnificent fig trees. Hidden sculptures were dotted throughout the garden, and native birdlife gradually returned, transforming the once-neglected space into one of Sydney’s most treasured public gardens.
Wendy’s Secret Garden is an easy walk from Victoria Cross Metro Station, North Sydney and Milsons Point train stations, as well as the Milsons Point and McMahons Point ferry wharves.
Brett Whiteley Studio (located at 2 Raper Street in Surry Hills) will officially reopen on Saturday, July 25, with visiting times running from 10am-4pm from Thursday to Sunday. You can find out more here.
