SCOTT BEVAN: As history has taught us, the lives of some famous artists are tinged with sadness as well as greatness, as their devotion to creation ends with self-destruction. Think of Vincent Van Gogh or, in Australia, Brett Whitely. And there is Howard Arkley.
He was a modern Australian painter who triggered enormous interest not just here but internationally before he died of a drug overdose in 1999, at the very peak of his career. A retrospective of Howard Arkley's work has now commenced its tour of major galleries along Australia's east coast. But the artist's legacy is more than his paintings.
There is also lingering bitterness over his will. Greg Hoy reports. GREG HOY: This book tells the story of the remarkable life and accomplishments of Howard Arkley, a well travelled and great Australian artist, contemporary master of abstraction and conceptualised portraiture, including of his friend Nick Cave.
But Arkley was best known for his neon-graffiti-esque cartoons of suburbia, a landscape long ignored by Australian artists, that vast, brick sprawl that houses the majority of Australians. HOWARD ARKLEY (ABC DOCUMENTARY, 2000): Then you have the fence, then you have the green lawn, then you have the house, then you have the tiles, then the blue sky and I missed the bushes in between. It's rich.
On another day its soul was tragic and sad. GWEN ARKLEY, MOTHER: He was so intense. It was everything to him.
It wasn't just some passing phase. DR JOHN GREGORY: Alongside all of the colour and movement, you sort of forget in a way what sort of what actually masterpieces of craft they are, as well as great works of art. ASHLEY CRAWFORD, FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER: He was also incredibly fussy.
If he thought a work wasn't working, I actually saw him put a knife through a canvas that I thought looked fantastic. GREG HOY: Dr Gregory's book was released in tandem with the Victorian launch of a major retrospective of Arkley's work. It will this year tour the big galleries of the eastern capitals and then, it is hoped, head for London.
But while it salutes Howard Arkley's life and art, what Dr Gregory's book doesn't explore is the artist's tragic death, the aftershocks of which still shadow his flowing tributes. That sad tale is sordid, and certainly as colourful as any of Howard Arkley's paintings ever were. That fatal tale is a tangle that began in triumph in Venice in 1999, when Arkley was selected to represent Australia at the International Exhibition of Fine Art, the Venice Biennale.
ASHLEY CRAWFORD: He was the talk of Venice. It was very gratifying to see international journalists and international critics and other international artists all going, "Wow, look at the Australian pavilion." It really hit the mark.
ALISON BURTON, WIDOW: Venice was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Of the experiences that we shared, I think Venice was one of the most amazing.
GREG HOY: Venetian parties, long lunches - Cherie Blair was there, effusive in her praise - but beneath the exultation, Howard Arkley's mother sensed trouble brewing. GWEN ARKLEY: The whole thing was wonderful in one way, but, in another way, to seem so distressed is something that I will never forget. GREG HOY: Like Whitely before him, Arkley had long decried the cravings of a heroin habit.
ASHLEY CRAWFORD: He was the first person to say don't touch it - to his students, to anybody who would listen, he would say this is the curse of his life. GREG HOY: With his then partner, Howard Arkley left Venice for another exhibition in America before here, in the Arkleyesque dream world of Las Vegas, in the last week of the artist's life, the couple were married. ALISON BURTON: It was great.
It was very exciting and we were incredibly happy. So the crash was something else. GREG HOY: Days later, on his return to Melbourne, Arkley shocked his family, friends and the art world when he died of a heroin overdose.
ALISON BURTON: The world had come to an end for me, as I knew it - and it did. GREG HOY: At first, it was thought there was no will. Then this document was found, triggering a bitter controversy.
Two terse and typed paragraphs that read in summary "I bequeath and devise unto Alison Burton all of my possessions". ALISON BURTON: There was always a will. It was legal.
It was given a grant of probate. There are no questions. GREG HOY: But there were concerns raised that the signing of this will was witnessed only by Alison Burton and those closest to her, her sister and brother-in-law, Dr John Gregory.
JOHN GREGORY: When the grant of probate has been given, I think people who continue to complain are simply - well, they are outside the realm of - they are in a fantasy land. GREG HOY: Can you, perhaps if you could just explain the situation, though, because you must have been there, were you, when the will was made? JOHN GREGORY: Well, look, actually, I really do have to go.
News RSS