Whiteley’s bather hits market after 40 years on gallery wall
A Brett Whiteley painting the size of a king-double bed has hit the Australian auction market for the first time, carrying an estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million.
Woman in a bath 5, painted in 1963-64, is on the cover of the catalogue for Deutscher + Hackett’s 57-lot Important Australian and International Fine Art auction, for which total estimates range between $6.75 million and $10.07 million. It follows Smith & Singer’s catalogue reported in Saleroom last week, where upper estimates total more than $20 million.
The April 29 auction in Melbourne will see the Whiteley potentially change hands for the first time since its present owner, a Melbourne collector, acquired it from Nevill Keating Pictures in London in 1985.
Brett Whiteley’s Woman in a bath 5, 1963-64, carries an estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million in Deutscher + Hackett’s auction on April 29, 2026.
When the work arrived back in Australia, the collector – actually a couple, one of whom has passed away – immediately put the painting on long-term loan to the esteemed Bendigo Art Gallery, where it has hung ever since.
Whiteley was 25 and living in London when he painted Woman in a bath 5, writing that the work and its four companion pieces were about “sex and the desire to record sensual behaviour”. The woman in the bath was, of course, Wendy Whiteley. The adventurous Sydney-born couple had married two years earlier.
Woman in a bath 5 was shown in The New Generation: 1964, at Whitechapel Gallery, London, and illustrated in the 100-page catalogue.
In the same prestigious exhibition were artworks by David Hockney, John Hoyland, Bridget Riley and others who would become pedestal figures in the pantheon of British artists.
Woman in a bath 5 was thus one of the works that catapulted Whiteley to international attention when he was young. Of the other works in the bath series, one is in the Tate Gallery in London, another is in a private collection in Switzerland, one is in the collection of TarraWarra Museum of Art in Victoria, and one is in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
John Peter Russell’s Meules de Blé à Monte Cassino, c.1889, carries an estimate of $1.2 million to $1.8 million at Deutscher + Hackett.
Woman in a bath 5 is in oil, tempera and collage on board, and measures 213 x 183 cm. Bidders will need big walls, or plans to mimic their predecessors and lend the work to a public gallery. Of course, a public institution could buy the work itself.
“It’s a real prize,” Deutscher + Hackett director Damian Hackett told Saleroom. “It’s for the serious Whiteley collector or a public institution, for sure.”
The painting of Wendy’s languorous bathtime routine carries the highest estimate in the auction, followed by John Peter Russell‘s Meules de Blé à Monte Cassino, c.1889 at $1.2 million to $1.8 million.
Russell’s painting depicts haystacks and is on consignment from a private collection in Perth. They don’t call Russell the Australian Impressionist for nothing, and this one features particularly assertive colour contrasts of egg yolk yellow and lavender.
Russell was Sydney born and had a large inheritance. He travelled widely, studied art overseas, built a home on the wild French island of Belle-Île, made friends with Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and Vincent Van Gogh, and was living back in Sydney at Watsons Bay when he died in 1930.
Jeffrey Smart’s Outskirts, Athens, 1964, carries an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000 in Deutscher + Hackett’s auction on April 29, 2026.
Another Whiteley carries the third-highest estimate in the auction – $400,000 to $600,000 for 2pm light early January 1984, 1984. The mixed media painting of a gurgling river comes from a private collection in Indonesia.
Fred Williams’ Flooded creek, 1977, comes in equal fourth ($300,000 to $400,000) with Jeffrey Smart’s Outskirts, Athens, 1964. Sadly it’s too late to prompt Whiteley, Russell, Williams or Smart for memories about their artworks.
But Ben Quilty was happy to be reminded of his visceral hamburger, The lot no. 4, 2009, which carries an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000 in the catalogue.
Fred Williams’s Flooded creek, 1977, carries an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000 in Deutscher + Hackett’s auction on April 29, 2026.
“Omg I remember that painting,” Quilty messaged Saleroom. “I bought it (the burger) from the takeaway in Mittagong. I actually bought two and ate one.”
Ben Quilty’s The lot no. 4, 2009, carries an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000 in Deutscher + Hackett’s auction on April 29, 2026
In the Sydney viewing of the auction lots, which continues until Sunday before moving to Melbourne next week, Saleroom found Deutscher + Hackett specialist Henry Mulholland lost in thought before one of his favourites – Godfrey Miller‘s intricate abstraction, Summer (2), 1960-64 (estimate $200,000 to $300,000). “For artists, it’s very hard not to appreciate the obsessive nature of an artist like this,” Mulholland said.
“He obviously had a geometry set and never put it away.”
Godfrey Miller’s Summer (2), 1960-64, carries an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000 at Deutscher + Hackett.
Summer (2) hung in curator Deborah Edwards’ Godfrey Miller retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria in 1996.
Old Street, Dinan, 1902, by Frances Hodgkins, carries an estimate of $30,000 to $40,000 at Deutscher + Hackett.
Six important women artists lead the Deutscher + Hackett catalogue, including the New Zealand-born Frances Hodgkins whose French scene, Old Street, Dinan, 1902, is estimated at $30,000 to $40,000. A Sydney family had taken the painting to art consultant Leigh Capel, asking him to work out who their long-held mystery picture was by. Capel duly listed the painting on his website as an Albert Henry Fullwood, with a price tag of $5000. But Capel’s further research revealed the much more highly valued Hodgkins was the work’s author. He then approached Deutscher + Hackett.
Dorset cottages, 1935, also known as Houses on the corner, by Dorrit Black, carries an estimate of $80,000 to $120,000 at Deutscher + Hackett.
“We got together and hit the books and worked out if we could actually identify it, which we did,” Hackett said. Mary Kisler, an authority on Hodgkins, sealed the deal by writing the catalogue essay for the work.
Flowers and Books, c.1935, by Bessie Davidson, carries an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000 at Deutscher + Hackett.
Among the other early moderns in the sale is the in-vogue Dorrit Black whose 1935 painting, the very sweet Dorset cottages, is estimated at $80,000 to $120,000. Another is the wonderful Bessie Davidson with Flowers and books, c.1935, estimated at $200,000 to $300,000.
Kathleen O’Connor’s tranquil painting, Domestic scene, 1947 ($40,000 to $60,000) brings us back to Wendy Whiteley. O’Connor was Wendy Whiteley’s great aunt, and they both spent substantial time in France.
Kathleen O’Connor’s oil painting, Domestic scene, 1947, carries an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000.
William Kentridge’s bronze statuette, Untitled V, 2007, carries an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000 at Deutscher + Hackett.