PROMISING ART OF WILLIAM WHITAKER

The Promising Art of William Whitaker

The three drawings reproduced on pages eight, nine, ten and eleven are from a special Conté crayon, pastel and chalk portfolio of drawings portraying the women of Northern Cheyenne and Comanche tribes. The original portfolio is already part of prominent permanent collections.

William Whitaker was born in Chicago in 1943. When he was very young, his father retired from a successful commercial art business and moved the family to California to concentrate on painting. Later, they moved to Utah and spent the winters in Carmel, California.

He grew up in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains among the Indians, cattle and horses. At the age of six he started painting with oils and continued under the tutelage of his father until he entered the University of Utah as an early admission student.

While at the University he studied art under Alvin Gittins. Later on he studied at the Otis Art Institute under Charles White. He also has a degree in marketing and has worked as a free lance illustrator, film director, custom interior designer, copy writer and portrait painter.

Whitaker spent two and a half years in Germany for the Mormon Church, mainly directing foreign language film dubbing and designing film graphics.

His awards include one from the Utah Institute of Fine Arts and one from the Springerville, Utah Annual National Invitational Show. At the present time he is an assistant Professor at Brigham Young University two days a week and the rest of his time is spent at his easel.