Dan Whitney
Daniel Webster Whitney was born outside Baltimore in 1894. At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts… he won a scholarship to study in Paris.
World War I found him back in France as an infantryman. When he was wounded in his right (painting) arm in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, he taught himself to paint left-handed…
Portrait of Dan Whitney, date and photographer unknown, collection of Catherine Whitney
…He came from his native Baltimore [to New Orleans] in 1924. Already an accomplished painter, he took a studio in the lower Pontalba building, started doing sketches for the Times-Picayune, and showed his work at the Delgado Museum and the YMCA.
The next year found him teaching at the Arts & Crafts Club: a painting class in the morning, night classes in life drawing and composition and a Sunday morning still life class…
He also painted a portrait of an uptown student named Catherine Wainwright and then married her… this marriage was front-page news… and short-lived.
John Shelton Reed - Dixie Bohemia
Daniel Witney with a class of life drawing students, date unknown. By photographer Rudolf Hertzberg, collection of Catherine Whitney, gift of James de Buys.
Dan Whitney portrait, photographer unknown (perhaps Pops Whitesell), from the collection of Catherine Whitney
Dan Whitney in the French Quarter, photographer unknown
French Quarter artist Daniel Webster Whitney, at work in his Covington studio. Courtesy The Historic New Orleans Collection, gift of Allan Phillip Jaffe 1981.324.3.1121