Why has Melbourne writer Barry Dickins immersed himself in the world of Brett Whiteley?
Brett Whiteley remains a controversial figure in the Australian cultural landscape, but since his squalid death in room four of the Beach Hotel in Thirroul on June 15, 1992, he is often seen in the monolithic terms of art and heroin. Melbourne writer Barry Dickins has spent almost two years revisiting Whiteley’s world – a world inhabited by until-now unspoken remembrances in search of completion, lingering affections, and unresolved resentments about the man and his legacy. Dickins describes his new book, Black + Whiteley, as a “warts and all” account of the most controversial of all Australian artists. He says that while he was writing the book, he was “working with love and respect after everyone else has devoured his ruins”. Black and Whiteley, he says, is “more a collected reminiscence on Whiteley, not a biography”. Whiteley has been the subject of several biographies over the 10 years since his death, but Dickins says he sought to make his book more loquacious; seeking to write “p
