There has never been anyone like him in the history of art in Australia or anywhere else. The brief life that once belonged tantalisingly to Brett Whiteley is as bizarre and droll as it is tragic. When he was only twenty-two, his paintings made him a household name in London. The Fleet Street press called him "Whiteley the Wonder Boy" because he was as young as he was brilliant, and the Australian newspapers followed suit.
Brett Whiteley once famously said, "I paint in order to see." In this book, Barry Dickins felt he had to write about Brett in order to see him, to learn to appreciate him not so much as an artist but as a man.
