Curated by Wendy Whiteley and the Art Gallery of NSW, this exhibition focuses on the enduring connection that Whiteley had with the region west of the Great Dividing Range and features 35 works including painting, sculpture and drawings that span three decades of the artist’s career.

The exhibition runs through to November 30 at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in Katoomba.

Barry Pearce, Emeritus Curator of Australian Art from the Art Gallery of New South Wales says of this exhibition: “Although Brett Whiteley became master of a spectrum of subjects, from portraits and interiors to abstractions and figure compositions in which he excelled as a draftsman of the nude with compelling vitality, it is perhaps his landscapes which best encapsulate an ability to transport us through the spaces of his imagination.”

From his formative years as a student at Scots College, Bathurst throughout his life, Brett Whiteley had a lasting connection with the Central Tablelands.

Many of the works featured are rarely seen and provide a wonderful insight into the artistic development of Whiteley from his early career in the late 1950s through to the end of his life in the 1990s.

Brett Whiteley’s affinity with the landscape west of Sydney encompassing Oberon in the Blue Mountains to the Central Tablelands through Bathurst, Orange, Lucknow, Millthorpe, Carcoar, Sofala, Hill End and south to Marulan, is little documented in the many texts that have been written on his oeuvre, yet the artworks produced of, and inspired by this region are some of the most magical.

“This exhibition acknowledges the important role the Central West and greater Blue Mountains region played in the artistic development of one of Australia’s most recognised and celebrated artists and in doing so further interprets the rich artistic narrative of the region,” Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Director, Paul Brinkman said.