Background
Whaite was born in Manchester in 1828. His father, Henry, owned an art gallery and picture framing business, which also supplied painted banners for rallies and meetings
Whaite was born in Manchester in 1828. His father, Henry, owned an art gallery and picture framing business, which also supplied painted banners for rallies and meetings
Whaite was educated at Manchester Grammar School before matriculating to the Manchester School of Design.
Having spent the earlier part of career based in his native Manchester, he later settled near Conwy in North Wales. He later moved to London to complete his education, studying at Leigh"s School in Newman Street and at the Royal Academy in Somerset House. He visited Switzerland in 1850, and inspired by the mountain scenery planned to return the following year, but this proved impracticable.
Unable to return to Switzerland, he looked for mountain scenery nearer home, and in 1851 made his first visit to Betws-y-Coed, a village in the Conwy Valley in North Wales which had already become a favourite destination for artists.
The landscape of the area was to become the main subject of his work for the rest of his life. Then, in 1870, he took a house called Tyddyn Cynal on the river about 3 miles from Conwy, which became his permanent residence.
They had one daughter, Lily Florence Whaite, who also became a notable artist. In 1881 Whaite led a group of English and Welsh artists in forming the Cambrian Academy of Art, later the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, the first art Academy in Wales.
He later became the President of the Cambrian Academy and in 1892 became president of the Manchester Academy, a post he held until his death.
A bronze of Whaite by Irish artist John Cassidy was commissioned and completed in 1898. He died in 1912 and was buried at Llangelynnin New Church. Very exquisite in nearly every respect.
Perhaps, take it all in all the most covetable bit of landscape this year, and showing good promise, it seems to me, if the painter does not overwork himself needlessly.
The execution of the whole by minute and similar touches is a mistake. When all of Whaite"s submissions to the Academy"s exhibition of 1865 were rejected, he took them to Ruskin, who provided detailed criticism, illustrating his remarks on their shortcomings with reference to sketches and drawings by Turner.
His oil paintings often used spots of pure colour, a consequence of his interest in colour theory, which may have pre-empted the pointillism strand of Impressionism that developed elsewhere in Europe.
He was an early member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, and a leading figure in the formation of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Artist Foreign the next twenty years, however, he remained based in Manchester, living in Stretford and becoming a member of the newly established Manchester Academy of Fine Arts in 1859.