Raymond A. Whyte

leftRaymond A. Whyte (August 3, 1923 – April 9, 2003) was a surrealist artist known for trompe l’oeil, still life, fantasy paintings, and portraits with surreal elements. He was a popular artist of New York City financial executives and art collectors in the 1950s and 1960s, including B. Gerald Cantor, Malcolm Forbes and R. McLean Stewart. Five of Whyte's works were exhibited in the offices of Cantor-Fitzgerald and destroyed during the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Early life and education Whyte was born in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. He moved to New York City as a child and attended Dewitt Clinton High School in Lower Manhattan, along with B. Gerald Cantor, who would later become a friend and frequent patron of Whyte's artwork. As a teen, he was awarded a citywide scholarship to the Art Students League of New York, where he studied under Edwin Dickinson.

Whyte attended the University of Toronto, then served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and later, the Royal Canadian Air Force as a navigator. While there, he also boxed as a light heavyweight for his pre-flight air crew. thumb Eve (oil on canvas) by Raymond A. Whyte. The trompe l’oeil technique was often used by Whyte in depicting many different subjects.He apprenticed under Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Louis Bouché, Robert Brackman, Frank Vincent DuMond, Vaclav Vytlacil and Will Barnet. Whyte studied in Venice, Paris, Madrid, Toronto and New York.

Career Whyte started his career painting portraits in New York City, first inspired by the style of the Flemish masters Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. At the height of his popularity in the mid-1960s, Whyte's commissions and portrait sittings were reported to cost US$10,000. A few years later, he received a corneal transplant from a woman who was having an eye removed. She reportedly "seemed visibly brightened that it was going to an artist" and the two kept in touch regularly after that. His subjects included nudes, exotic items, surreal landscapes, and sometimes mythical creatures and battle scenes. His wife Erica was often a model for his figure paintings and nudes. Untitled, Surrealist Landscape, oil on canvas, circa 1963. Whyte's depictions of medieval knights, women and animals were recurring motifs of his work. Wrapped in Clouds (1977) Whyte later experimented with tromp l'oeil techniques that incorporated the sky and other backgrounds to interact with the subject. In 1967, Whyte's painting The Golden Elephant was loaned, along with several Rodin sculptures, to the Crocker Museum in Sacramento by B. Gerald Cantor. After its exhibition, Cantor later donated the painting to Crocker's permanent collection.

In 1975, two of Whyte's paintings, The Girl In the Yellow Shirt and The Violin, were shown at the opening of the Benedict Art Gallery in Madison, New Jersey.

Whyte held over 30 solo exhibitions in New York City, San Francisco, Houston, Naples, London and Paris, including the de Saisset Museum of Art and the Crocker Art Museum.

His works were in the collections of Malcolm Forbes, Orson Bean, B. Gerald Cantor, Vivian Vance, Gerald B. Kara and J. Paul Getty.

Death Whyte died in Spring Hill, Florida on April 9, 2003.