'In 1980, Brett Whiteley completed his famous portrait of Patrick White, Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979–1980, disagreements over which caused a terminal rupture in the friendship between the two men. Of his intentions for the painting Whiteley said, ‘Could I make a vision of the feeling of his literature plus how he lived, and the complexity of him as a person, his humour, his bitchiness, his pronouncements?’' (Introduction)