Wendy Whiteley

Wendy Susan Whiteley (born 1941) is best known as the former wife of the Australian artist Brett Whiteley, and as the mother of their daughter, actress Arkie Whiteley (1964–2001).

Wendy Susan Julius was born in Sydney in 1941, the elder of two daughters.

She came from a creative lineage.

Her great-grandfather was Charles Yelverton O'Connor, engineer for Fremantle Harbour and the Kalgoorlie Pipeline, who committed suicide ten months before the pipeline was opened.

Her grandfather was Sir George Julius, the inventor of the totalisator and co-founder of the CSIRO.

A great-aunt, Kate O'Connor, was a painter who lived in Paris most of her life.

Her father, George Yelverton Julius, known as "Gentleman George", was thrown out by her mother for infidelity when Wendy was six and she and her sister have little or no memory of him.

When Wendy was about 12, she was devastated to read in the newspapers that her father had been sent to prison for eight years for burglary.

Her mother later remarried and had two more children.

Wendy attended Lindfield Public School and Hornsby Girls' High School.

She won art awards and a David Jones Drawing Prize, which defrayed the costs of her formal studies at East Sydney Technical College.

In 1957, aged not yet 16, she met the 17-year-old Brett Whiteley at his home, where she had been invited by a friend.

It is sometimes claimed that this meeting occurred at Jerichos, a Sydney coffee shop known for its bohemian clientele, but the reality was more prosaic.

There was an immediate mutual attraction and they soon became lovers.

At that time, Brett was attending the life drawing classes at the Julian Ashton Art School, while working for Lintas Advertising.

He took Wendy along to a class, where her drawing proved to be better than his.

A short time before their meeting, Brett's mother Beryl had separated from her husband and moved overseas.

Brett was devastated when she refused his entreaties to come home.

He was still living with his father Clem Whiteley, and Wendy moved in; she also went to work for Clem's interior design business.

As a couple, their sense of style and extravagance was compared with that of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Their relationship had extremes of passion right from the start.

In November 1959, Brett was awarded an Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship.

He wanted to take Wendy with him, but Clem refused to supply the necessary money; there were quarrels, which resulted in Wendy moving out of the house.

She saw Brett off on the boat, and then started working 18 hours a day to earn the money to pay her own way to Europe.

Brett arrived in Italy in February 1960, and Wendy reunited with him in Paris on 14 June.

They lived in Florence for some months, and in 1961 they moved to London and set up his studio there.

In March 1962 his first one-man exhibition, at the Matthiesen Galleries, was a financial success, which prompted them to marry on 27 March, in the Chelsea registry office.

They had en extended honeymoon in the south of France, where his Summer at Sigean had its genesis.

At the time, Brett said: "If ever I have a retrospective, it will be a chronological testament to Wendy – to my relationship with her".

After their return to London, Brett started on the Bathroom paintings, a major series of nudes celebrating Wendy's form and his domestic happiness.

Wendy worked as a fashion under-buyer for Harvey Nichols.

Wendy and Brett's daughter Arkie Whiteley was born in London on 6 November 1964.

They returned to Australia in December 1965, living at Whale Beach, north of Sydney, where Arkie took her first steps.

In 1967 they moved to New York City for Brett to take up a Harkness Fellowship scholarship.

They sailed on the final voyage of the Queen Mary.

She has become a notable cultural figure, particularly since her ex-husband's death in 1992.

She posed for Brett many times.

Although they divorced three years before he died, she has control of Brett Whiteley's estate including the copyright to his works.

She played an important role in the establishment of the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills, New South Wales which is now owned and managed as an art museum by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Wendy Whiteley is also known for the restoration and landscaping of derelict railway land in Lavender Bay, Sydney, which she turned into a "magic garden" and where her ex-husband Brett and daughter Arkie Whiteley's ashes were scattered.