John Whitney

John Whitney has had many influences in his artistic life, two of them major. His father, William R. Whitney, studied at the University of Kansas under Albert Bloch, the only American in the first Munch exhibition of the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in 1911. W.R. Whitney later accepted a position as Supervisor of the Kansas Arts and Crafts Division of the WPA, which commissioned all the artists in the state to do public works during the Great Depression. The senior Whitney's work with the WPA was featured at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, where it garnered the attention of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt was so impressed with W.R. Whitney's work that she consulted him on her Arthurdale, West Virginia project that was the first of many New Deal planned communities. The second major influence in young John Whitney's life was his aunt, Marjorie Whitney. After studying at the University of Kansas and abroad, Marjorie Whitney went on to establish success as a muralist, an illustrator, and later, as the Chairman of the Design Department of the University of Kansas.

From early childhood, it seemed that John Whitney was destined to become an artist. His early childhood was considerably different than most. Painting excursions with his aunt and father took him to river banks, road cuts, and lakes, seeking roots and boulders that had eroded, exposing the skeleton structure that formed the vast prairies of Kansas and Oklahoma. It was here that he learned of the movement of form and the fusion of color, capturing what he felt, not just what he saw in line and paint. They gathered creek water and mixed it with the prepared watercolor, which was then applied on the carefully stretched Arches paper. In the hours that followed, Whitney would be lectured on composition, pigment grinds, the minimalism and the descriptive meaning of each paint stroke. While painting, Whitney's father and aunt spoke of fellow artist friends sucg as Bloch and Will Penny, recalling the dedication these artists had in their pursuit of art.

When it was Whitney's turn to attend the University of Kansas beginning in 1963, he already knew all the artists and professors, as they were part of his extended family. His mentors during this period included Robert Green, Elden Tefft, Carlisle Smith, Bernard "Poco" Frasier, and Fernando Diaz. Their contributions were a wonderful gift for the life of an artist. By his junior year, Whitney had already staged his first one-man exhibition at the Collectors Gallery in Santa Fe, and later at the Jamison Gallery in Santa Fe and Gallery A in Taos. Forty years after beginning his art career, Whitney is represented by galleries across the United States, most recently with Gallery C.

John Whitney and his wife, Linda, have lived across the United States, and now call Essex, Vermont home. Whitney maintains two studios in Essex, the first a print studio devoted to his sought-after figurative monoprints, and a second devoted entirely to painting.