"Brett suggested one day that we try to soak up the Lawrence ambience there," Garry recalled. "Brett particularly empathised with Lawrence and his stormy relationship in 'Wyewurk' with Frieda. There was more than a hint of this in the picture."

The two artists wanted to paint from the veranda of "Wyewurk", so Whiteley, with his two silky terriers in train, approached the door of the bungalow, aware that the occupant at that time, a dentist, did not welcome visitors.

"As we were talking to the owner, who was very gruff, one of Brett's dogs ran inside the house. Suddenly we had an excuse to go inside to find the dog," Shead remembered.

As they tried to coax the dog out of the house, the pair caught a glimpse of the jarrah table where Lawrence partly wrote Kangaroo, before they retreated.

Next they approached the owner of the house next door, who allowed them to set up their easels on her veranda, and began work.

"Brett had cheated a little. He'd already half done his work before coming down, and then he painted on my side of the canvas," Shead said.

Both halves of the diptych depict a stormy scene, with angry waves lashing the shore. Shead's half shows "Wyewurk" teetering on its cliff above a raging sea. The colours are deep purples and blues, contrasting with the olive green of the foliage.

Whiteley's trademark white-wisps wash into Shead's scene. Brett's-half echoes the same deep blues, purple and green, but his painting basically depicts a ramp disappearing into the angry ocean - "a ramp leading to oblivion", as Brett described it to Shead. Lawrence's face floats in the foreground.

Having completed the diptych, the two artists decided to invite Australia's leading author, Patrick White, to its unveiling at a Sydney gallery.

Brett, who knew White well (and later painted what White regarded as the best portrait of him), was aware of White's obsession with Lawrence, who was, in White's opinion, one of the three great writers of the 20th century.

(When I used to go riding in Centennial Park in the early mornings, I would often see White, standing beside the horse track with his two little dogs. I did not know at that time that he always took a volume of Lawrence, perhaps Kangaroo, in his breast pocket when he went for his walks. In 1939 White had made a personal pilgrimage to Taos, to pay homage to Lawrence. Dorothy Brett took him to meet Frieda, whom he found "witty and amusing".)

White's reaction to the diptych at its gallery "premiere" was not what they had expected.

"Brett [Whiteley]was a person given to the dramatic, so he made something of an event of the unveiling - or rather the unlocking - of the diptych," Shead recalled.

"The work consisted of a book-like construction, in imitation of the traditional religious diptyches of medieval times. As White and the rest of the opening-night audience gathered before the closed diptych, Brett unlocked it and swung open its leaves, to reveal the full work in all its magnificence.

"I think Brett was a trifle disappointed with White's reaction to this ceremony. It may have been White's aversion to public displays of emotion, but he did not go overboard about the work, though in fact it was dedicated to him."

Brett Whiteley made his last visit to Thirroul in 1992 - he went down there regularly - where he died from a drug-overdose, alone, in a local motel room.

A life, and a talent, that Australia could ill-afford to lose.

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