Artist, author and educator Richard Whitney, PhD.H is internationally known for his portraits and landscapes painted in the style of contemporary realism. Town and Country magazine has named him one of the top dozen portrait painters in America. Fine Art Connoisseur has called him one of “the giants of the field” of figurative painting. Whitney's paintings hang in over 800 public and private collections throughout the United States and abroad. They include the Anchorage Museum of Art and History; the Anderson House Museum; the Newark Museum; the Pentagon; Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Universities; and the Catholic University of Portugal. He has won over 50 regional and national awards as well as three grants from the Greenshields Foundation of Montreal. Whitney was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of New Hampshire in 2015 and the Lotte Jacobi Living Treasure Award from the State of New Hampshire in 2017.
Whitney has painted more than 400 portraits including numerous CEOs of industry, presidents of universities and educational leaders as well as family and individual portraits. He has painted eight US Governors including Mitt Romney; US Senators Tom McIntyre, Judd Gregg and James Webb, Jr.; Nobel Laureates Paul Samuelson and Phillip Sharp; Secretary of Labor Robert Reich; Cardinal Humberto Medeiros; Father McGivney, Founder of the Knights of Columbus; and actor, Ethan Hawke. Whitney is Chairman Emeritus of the American Society of Portrait Artists Foundation.
Whitney is the author of the book Painting the Visual Impression which summarizes the basic principles of representational painting. First published in 1972, it has been read by thousands of artists world-wide and is regarded as a classic in its field. He is also a co-author of the book Realism in Revolution: The Art of the Boston School and his paintings have been reproduced in the book Edmund C. Tarbell and the Boston School of Painting.
Born in 1946, Whitney graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of New Hampshire in 1968. He studied with Sidney F. Willis and with the eminent Boston painter, R. H. Ives Gammell, for five years. Memberships have included the American Society of Classical Realism, the Guild of Boston Artists, the National Arts Club, the Players and the Society of Illustrators. Whitney is an Honorary Member of the Allied Artists of America and the American Artists Professional League and a Lifetime Member of the Copley Society of Art. He is an Advisory Board member of the Art Renewal Center, the world's largest on line museum and is recognized as an ARC Living Master.
Whitney's paintings have been seen on national cable television and have been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles. He was the cover artist for the April 1982 issue of American Artist and was featured again in April 2002. Whitney has traveled and painted in Europe, Japan, Alaska and the Caribbean and has lectured and conducted workshops throughout the United States. He is listed Who's Who in American Art, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the 21st Century and Who's Who in the World, 2018.
Whitney and his artist wife Sandy Sherman live on Crescent Pond in Stoddard, NH and their property is connected to a huge forest. Many years ago, Whitney began feeding black bears when they came out of hibernation and there was no food in the frozen forest. The world's leading authority on black bears, Dr. Lynn Rogers, encouraged him to continue as it was a public service and would help prevent the bears from going into town in search of food. Whitney practiced what biologists call "diversionary feeding." Over a ten year period, Crescent Pond became a nature lover's paradise and Whitney created what could be called a work of "environmental art" which was enjoyed by hundreds of visitors. He spent over a thousand hours walking amongst the bears in all hours of the day and night. He stopped feeding them last year and hopes to write a book about the experience. Whitney is trying to promote the idea of creating wildlife viewing sanctuaries in New Hampshire so that others can share the joy of seeing these magnificent animals up close and not behind a cage or as a trophy on a wall.
