Brett Whiteley was a popular Australian artist from 1939 to 1992. He won many prizes for his work, including the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman. His main subjects were nudes, interiors, and harbour scenes, and he worked in painting, sculpture, and graphic arts. Whiteley started as a commercial artist and took classes at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney. He painted around New South Wales and was awarded the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship in 1959, which took him to Europe. In London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin, he established an international reputation, spending time in the USA and Fiji. He moved to Lavender Bay in Sydney and joined the Yellow House artists’ collective, where he became a highly regarded artist. Whiteley’s art reflected his life, including his heroin addiction, which increased after the 1970s. He died of a methadone overdose in Thirroul in 1992, and his former studio became a museum managed by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.