Ad man Peter Clemenger sets Whiteley’s Wren free - for $2m plus

The minute Joan and Peter Clemenger walked into Brett Whiteley’s exhibition at Australian Galleries in Melbourne in 1978, one painting in particular caught and held their eye.

The Wren, painted by Whiteley that year, featured an exquisite blue bird in an expanse of sun-bleached yellow grassland. Around and across the canvas swept a river with rocky outcrops within and beside it.