Robert Whitmore: A Devoted Sense of Place

Opening at the Herndon Gallery at Antioch

Gallery hours 1 – 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday & 7-9pm on Thursday

Exhibit Reception: Saturday, April 10th, from 7 - 9 pm

Robert Whitmore’s paintings, and works on paper celebrate a pristine corner of the Ohio landscape surrounding the Little Miami River, a valley rich in history and natural beauty. Whitmore cared deeply about his surroundings, and through his eyes we become more keenly aware of the value of our regional environmental heritage, much of it still apparent in Yellow Springs, John Bryan State Park and The Glen Helen Nature Preserve at Antioch College. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Morgan Fellow, Anne Bohlen, the artist’s son, Jon Whitmore, and Associate Professor of Art at Sinclair Community College, Kay Koeninger.


The Artist:

Robert H. Whitmore was born in Dayton in 1890 and attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1913-1917 where he studied drawing, painting, sculpture and anatomy, as well as architecture, illustration, and woodcarving. Whitmore taught at the Dayton Art Institute from 1920-23 where nineteen of his works remain in the permanent collection. During this period he developed his printmaking skills as a member of the Dayton Society of Etchers. With his wife, Elizabeth Ann Bennett, and their five children he lived in a house outside of Yellow Springs that was formerly owned by Horace Mann, first President of Antioch College

In 1925 Arthur Morgan, president of Antioch College, asked Whitmore to join the Department of Art where he enjoyed a long and distinguished teaching career until his retirement in 1955. Whitmore was a man of many talents and he remained an active artist up until his death at age 89 in 1979. In the words of Don Wallis, from an earlier exhibition review: “As an artist he grounded his work—as he grounded his life—in his devoted sense of place.”