SMH: Wendy Whiteley’s second gift: ‘The time has come to give women a bit of attention’
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SMH: Wendy Whiteley’s second gift: ‘The time has come to give women a bit of attention’
Article by: Linda Morris. Photo: Wendy Whiteley with Steven Alderton, CEO of the National Art School.
Wendy Whiteley was 15 when she dropped out of Hornsby Girls High to enrol in art school. She stayed about a year at East Sydney Technical College, in Darlinghurst, eventually following her prodigiously talented boyfriend to Italy. The rest, as they say, is Australian art history.
More than six decades later, Whiteley has made a $500,000 promised bequest to her alma mater, now the National Art School (NAS) – among the largest gifts the institution has received.
“I’m trying to tidy up loose ends towards the end of my life because I don’t want to leave another mess,” Whiteley says. “There’s been enough messes around Whiteley wills.”
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Friday 29 May 2026
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Friday 29 May 2026
The Makers Exhibition brings together works by NAS staff across teaching, technical, curatorial, administrative and library areas, celebrating the diverse creative practices that shape the school community. Presented as the launch exhibition for Third Space, the exhibition highlights making as a shared and ongoing part of life at NAS. Third Space will be open for the duration of the show from 11…
Friday 29 May 2026
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Friday 29 May 2026
Please see below for current and forthcoming exhibitions and events featuring our staff and alumni. Oliver Abbott: Processing This exhibition explores how personal and collective histories are constructed by revisiting relics of architecture and infrastructure unique to the Tweed. In Processing, Abbott reveals parallels between the construction of a painting and the way memory distorts, rearrange…
Thursday 28 May 2026
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