At just 26, newly a father and immersed in the cultural intensity of London, Brett Whiteley stood at a formative threshold when he created ‘Swinging Monkey 2’ (1965). This work marks his first sustained engagement with screenprinting, developed in collaboration with master printer Chris Prater, who was concurrently working with David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Bridget Riley - placing Whiteley directly within a moment of radical experimentation in photographic printmaking.

At the very moment Warhol was translating photographic imagery into the flattened repetitions of works such as ‘Flowers’ and the ‘Jackie’ series, Whiteley was pushing the same medium in a markedly different direction. Where Warhol tested its boundaries through repetition and the language of mass imagery, Whiteley’s approach feels far more intimate and psychologically charged -  yet no less contemporary.

‘The Regent’s Park Zoo Series’, to which this work belongs, emerged from Whiteley’s frequent visits to Regent’s Park Zoo, often with his infant daughter Arkie. Here, observation becomes projection: the animals are not merely subjects but vessels through which Whiteley explores energy, confinement, and the strange theatre of being alive. The influence of Francis Bacon lingers in the caged primate - tense, aware, almost uncomfortably sentient - transforming what begins as a moment of looking into something far more visceral and psychologically immediate.

And yet 'Swinging Monkey 2' resists heaviness. It is, unmistakably, a work of wit. The outstretched hand reaching through the mesh - animated, almost cheeky - carries a playful immediacy. The handwritten “DO NOT FEED” sign reads as both instruction and irony, heightening the sense that the viewer, too, is implicated in the exchange. There is a looseness here, a kind of visual mischief, that offsets the underlying tension.

This duality reflects the broader context of Whiteley’s 1965 Marlborough exhibition, where the Zoo works were shown alongside the darker Christie series. If those works confront the extremes of human behaviour, the Zoo images feel instinctive - alive with curiosity and a distinctly lyrical humour.

Held in major public collections across Australia and internationally, including the Tate and MoMA, Whiteley remains a touchstone of postwar Australian art. ‘Swinging Monkey 2’ captures him at a moment of emergence: technically exploratory, culturally attuned, and already unmistakably himself - serious in intent, yet delighting in the strange, animated theatre of the world.

Brett WHITELEY (1939 - 1992)
'Swinging Monkey 2 ' 1965
Colour Screenprint
Edition of 70
Image Size: 81 x 59 cm
Dimensions: 109 x 80 x 5 cm
Signed: Editioned and signed Brett Whiteley in margin

Comes with Letter of Provenance

Related Works: Other examples of this work are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

Exhibited:
-Brett Whiteley, Marlborough New London Gallery, London, 5-30 October 1965, cat.6 (another example),
-Recent Works from London by Brett Whiteley, Bonython Art Gallery, Adelaide, 31 January - 17 February 1966; Kym Bonythons Hungry Horse Gallery, Sydney, 7-24 March 1966, cat.9 (another example),
-Purchases and Acquisitions for 1966, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 April 1967 - 7 May 1967,
-Animals on Paper: from the Australian Collection of Prints, Drawings and Watercolours, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 5 September - 5 October 1992;
-Controversy: The Power of Art, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 21 June - 12 August 2012.

Reference: Mandy, R. Brett Whiteley: Graphics, 1961-1982, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1983, p.11, cat.6 (illus. another example), Brett Whiteley: The Graphics 1961-1992, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 1995, p.110, cat.6, (illus. p.17, another example), Sutherland, K. Brett Whiteley: A Sensual Line 1957-67, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2010, p.324, cat.W12, Sutherland, K. Brett Whiteley Catalogue Raisonné, Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, vol.5, p.17, cat.8P (illus. another example), vol.7, p.809.

Condition: Very Good

(c) Wendy Whiteley / Copyright Agency