Crichton, Tucker, WhiteleyThe Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69

This exhibition explores the connections between the work of Richard Crichton, Albert Tucker, and Brett Whiteley during their shared years living at New York’s Chelsea Hotel from 1967 and 1969. As Australian artists navigating the city’s competitive avant-garde art scene, each forged a distinct response to the American environment.

Crichton and Whiteley drew heavily on music—Crichton from the street-level theatre of brass bands and carnival jazz and Whiteley from the constant presence of Bob Dylan as he channelled the American psyche into raw, expressive imagery. Tucker, though occasionally influenced by the local jazz scene, maintained a more deliberately antipodean visual language.

The Chelsea Hotel years were both challenging and galvanising for these artists, and the exhibition offers insight into the work that came out of this formative period and experiences that shaped it.