The Artistry of Mary Whyte

On the stairway leading up to her Seabrook Island studio, Mary Whyte has inscribed the following words in a calligraphic script:

Coraggio
Ispirazione
Visione
Perseveranza
Forza
Fantasia
Fede

These words have served as the artist's guiding principles, and are encapsulated in her life and her art. She selected Italian as a reminder of the year she spent in Rome as an art student, and, perhaps, because that language is uplifting and inspirational. With their longstanding commitment to an artistic and operatic way of life, Italians are consummate models for a dedicated and ambitious painter who feels passionately about her art and her subjects.

Coraggio, or courage, describes the way Whyte chooses her subject matter and the conviction with which she practices her profession. Usually she is an outsider who makes tentative steps to get to know her sitters, whether they are members of a rural Amish community in Ohio or Gullah women in South Carolina who gather weekly to make quilts. She succeeded in earning the trust and the affection of the latter; Alfreda, the titular head of the group, even called Whyte “my vanilla sister.” Their mutual feelings of love and friendship radiate from such paintings as Red, where Alfreda is decked out in a brilliant Sunday hat. Courage was also called for when Whyte donned a cumbersome suit and mask so she could experience firsthand the responsibilities of beekeeping. Beekeeper's Daughter reflects her appreciation and understanding of how smoking the bees calms them down.

September, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 47 × 39 ½ inches
Collection of TD Bank

Red, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 18 ½ × 18 ½ inches
Private collection

Beekeeper's Daughter, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 28 ¾ × 21 ¾ inches
Private collection

It also took a good deal of nerve for Whyte to approach a rough and dirty threesome in a diner, but she was curious about their occupation, wondering if it would fit into her series featuring vanishing industries across the South. The three men agreed to let her sketch them, and the end result is the compelling Fifteen-Minute Break, one of the grittiest paintings Whyte has ever done.

Ispirazione, or inspiration, is what Whyte derives from the people she paints, the scenery she passes as she drives through the countryside, and the colors and textures she relishes painting.

Thumbnail sketches for Beekeeper's Daughter, 2008
Graphite on paper, 12 × 8 ¼ inches
Collection of the artist

“Many of the ideas for my paintings start with a fleeting glimpse: a figure hanging laundry, a shadow of a tree, a snippet of a shrimp boat on the river in the distance. Seeing these unfinished stories is sometimes like hearing only the middle words of a conversation and having to imagine the beginning and the end. These tiny flashes of life are sometimes the catalyst for a major series of works. For me ideas are more plentiful than the hours to paint them, and I worry that I cannot get to all my thoughts before they are forgotten or are pushed aside by more pressing concerns.” She speaks of how she might see a camellia bush in bloom and wonders to herself what Tesha might look like if she stood before it. Tesha Marsland has been Whyte's model since the early 1990s, and she has posed with horses, in doorways, and in chicken coops. She has developed a very comfortable working relationship—and friendship—with the artist. The painting Waiting has special meaning for both of them: Tesha had just learned that she was pregnant, telling Whyte, who then conveyed both quiet joy and anxious weariness in the final composition. It remains Tesha's favorite painting.

Close-up of Fifteen-Minute Break

Fifteen-Minute Break, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 58 × 38 ¾ inches
Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art

Summer Solstice, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 30 × 39 ¼ inches
Private collection

Explorer, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 27 × 20 inches
Private collection

End of High Tide, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 18 ¼ × 20 ¼ inches
Private collection

Music Men, 2007
Graphite on paper, 10 ½ × 7 ¾ inches
Private collection

Waiting, 2002
Watercolor on paper, 40 × 27 inches
Private collection

Visione, or vision, is represented by Whyte's ability to see beauty in ordinary things and people. “I'm a genre painter who depicts people under the radar,” she explained when describing herself and her sitters. Her vision impels her to take on new challenges and not become complacent. For the Working South project, she dedicated almost four years to the thirty watercolors that illustrated her theme and required her to travel far afield from Union City, Tennessee, to Miami, Florida, and lots of small towns in between.

Outbuilding with Chickens, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 11 × 9 inches
Private collection

Shoe Shine, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 25 ¼ × 23 inches
Private collection

Whyte's perseveranza, or perseverance, and discipline have allowed her to juggle all that she does: painting meticulously rendered watercolors, teaching four to six workshops annually, and producing books and DVDs, all at an apparent leisurely pace. While Working South was on view at the Greenville County Museum of Art during 2011, she offered numerous lectures, gallery talks, and book signings, reaching an audience of more than eleven thousand. In the DVD Watercolor Portraits of the South with Mary Whyte, she demonstrates her working method—lots of quick sketches, finished studies, and photographs—and shows the demanding task of painting the details of Tesha's right eye, mouth, and hair. She patiently and deliberately applies each stroke while providing an articulate and insightful commentary.

One of the most engaging segments of the video is of a chicken in Coop; the hen comes alive as Whyte mixes her favorite colors, ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, to simulate its feathers. In Painting Portraits and Figures in Watercolor, she declared, “No accomplished artist was brilliant right out of the chute. Every one of them had to pay his or her dues with hundreds of drawings and paintings. The key is to learn from failed works and understand what went wrong.”

Furthermore her passion for watercolor compounds the challenges. “Watercolor, as any of the serious arts, takes considerable patience, fortitude, and practice. If mastering the medium were easy, everyone would be an adept watercolorist and the medium would lose its magical appeal. Becoming an accomplished artist requires years of earnest effort to master drawing, composition, color mixing, and technique.”

Forza in Italian literally denotes “force,” but it can also be translated as strength. Mental, emotional, and physical strength are necessary to Whyte's modus operandi. “Painting is largely a solitary endeavor that requires enormous concentration…. I need a quiet place where I know I can have several hours of uninterrupted time.” She sometimes goes off for a month at a time in a new location, just so that she can concentrate on her work.

Slicker, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 18 × 17 ½ inches
Private collection

Sketches for Slicker, 2010
Graphite and watercolor on paper, 12 × 8 ¼ inches
Collection of the artist

Coop, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 28 ¼ × 40 ¾ inches
Private collection

She often paints en plein air—a French term for painting out of doors—and in South Carolina that can mean painting in hot and humid conditions. To optimize the light Whyte starts early in the morning and usually limits her sessions to less than two hours. She wears a hat with a wide visor so the sun does not get in her eyes and either a black, white, or gray top so that its color is not reflected on her paper. For her everything is carefully planned and worked out in advance. Strength is also a quality she finds in many of her sitters, as exemplified by the man in Hull, his power echoed by the imposing timbers above him, or the spiritual force observed in Soul Rising.

Miss Lewis in Pearls, 2012
Graphite on paper, 15 × 11 inches
Private collection

Hull, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 37 × 29 inches
Private collection

Cemetery, New Orleans, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 10 ½ × 12 inches
Collection of the artist

Soul Rising, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 29 ¼ × 22 ¼ inches
Private collection

Fantasia, fantasy or imagination, is embodied in many, but not all, of Whyte's paintings. Something of a storyteller, Whyte frequently poses her figures in a state of reverie, allowing the viewer to fill in the accompanying narrative. In many of her compositions, individuals are active at some kind of task: sweeping the floor, ironing, or cooking.

Often a sense of nostalgia pervades the painting—wistfulness for a time when things were simpler, less hurried, less complicated. Enhancing this retrospective mood, Whyte often paints her subjects enveloped in smoke and steam vapors that literally blur harsh details. Her talents as an illustrator reveal a capacity to translate a fantasy into vivid imagery, as she did with the children's picture book Snow Riders.

Ironing, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 29 × 21 inches
Private collection

Snowball from Snow Riders, 1995
Watercolor on paper, 18 ½ × 27 ½ inches
Collection of the artist

Fede, or faith, is something Whyte has in abundance. Faith in herself, her art, her sitters, and her God. She believes it is through the grace of God that she has achieved a certain level of success and gathered thousands of admirers across the country. In Down Bohicket Road—a reprise and expansion of her earlier book Alfreda's World about residents of Johns Island—Whyte frequently portrays and quotes women praying and referencing God.

The artist is grateful for all that she has been given, reads the Bible daily, and regularly attends the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour on Johns Island. When the congregation was raising money for a new parish hall, Whyte and her husband, Smith Coleman, a master frame maker, decided to make a unique gift of their shared creativity: four large, gilded oil paintings representing angels playing musical instruments.

Using multiracial models from the church's vacation Bible school, Whyte painted them as the four seasons; verses from Isaiah, beginning with “Sing a New Song to the Lord,” are inscribed on the handcrafted frames. Gilding highlights instruments and other details in airy fanciful settings that combine fresh young faces with flora and, in one case, goldfish. Coleman described the project as a labor of love: “You don't think about the hours. You just think about the result. This doesn't seem like work.”

Missing from the steps leading to Mary Whyte's studio is any specific reference to process or technique. Yet even a quick look at one of her paintings tells the viewer that she is a facile technician. She is a dedicated draftsman who relies on quick sketches and preparatory drawings to work out the fundamentals of her compositions. For instance, the Cubist-looking “thumbnails” in her sketchbook for Beekeeper's Daughter (page 5) reveal her methodology and concern for both geometric shapes and positive and negative space. Although from time to time she paints with oils, her real forte is watercolor, which she believes is closely linked to her preferred subject, people. “Watercolor is the essence of the human spirit: it is lively, spontaneous, engaging, unpredictable, beguiling, and has a will of its own. It has so many of the characteristics we humans do, why shouldn't it lend itself to painting portraits? Watercolor's natural luminosity can easily duplicate the fresh translucent look of skin, as well as aptly render interesting textures of clothing, hair, backgrounds, and atmosphere.”

Devotional, 2000
Watercolor on paper, 21 × 27 inches
Private collection

Hidden, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 15 ½ × 15 ¼ inches
Private collection

Gilded Quartet: Spring, 1999
Oil and gold leaf, 52 × 40 inches
Collection of the Church of Our Saviour, Johns Island, S.C.

Gilded Quartet: Summer, 1999
Oil and gold leaf, 52 × 40 inches
Collection of the Church of Our Saviour, Johns Island, S.C.

Gilded Quartet: Fall, 1999
Oil and gold leaf, 52 × 40 inches
Collection of the Church of Our Saviour, Johns Island, S.C.

Gilded Quartet: Winter, 1999
Oil and gold leaf, 52 × 40 inches
Collection of the Church of Our Saviour, Johns Island, S.C.

Close-up of Gilded Quartet: Spring

Two paintings beautifully exemplify Whyte's ability to articulate flesh: Lovers, with its rendering of the wrinkled, vein-ridden, translucent skin of an older woman, and Spinner, where the soft face of the African American millworker is clearly moist with perspiration. Absolution and Firefly Girl showcase her talent for depicting hair and textures, and with its riot of foreground flowers and hazy horizon, Goin' Home demonstrates Whyte's gift for capturing a fresh and airy outdoor scene.

Lovers, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 26 ½ × 27 ⅛ inches
Private collection

Close-up of Lovers

Spinner, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 36 ½ inches
Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art

Absolution, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 22 ½ × 28 ½ inches
Private collection

Close-up of Absolution

Goin' Home, 1993
Watercolor on paper, 20 × 26 ½ inches
Private collection

Firefly Girl, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 20 × 28 ¼ inches
Private collection

Watercolor is known as a willful medium, and it must be carefully controlled by the artist at all times. In this respect Whyte is its master, capable of tight and precise details—the result often of a dry brush that has little water on it—and runny expanses that express wind blowing, smoke rising, and water moving.

Whyte maintains that watercolor technique can be taught, and she has spent countless hours doing just that in her workshops, books, and DVDs. For her, however, good art is more than just technique: “I believe having the creative ‘idea’ and passion to express it is the one component of art that can't be taught. It must be an intrinsic part of the student's personality.”

At heart Whyte is a storyteller, following a venerable American tradition, and it is appropriate that she uses watercolor, a quintessential American medium. For Whyte the stories often need time to take shape, and accordingly her medium is a good match. “Some works take time to evolve. Like small seeds the paintings might not come to fruition until several years later, after there has been ample time for germination. To my mind watercolor is the only medium that matches the speed and the nebulousness of these stories as they unfold. Washes can be done quickly and loosely, making the unseen come to life.”

Little Love, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 22 × 24 inches
Private collection

Rooster, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 20 ¾ × 20 ¾ inches
Private collection

Steam Iron, 2002
Watercolor on paper, 27 ¾ × 20 ¾ inches
Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art

Persimmon, 2012
Watercolor on paper, 40 ¾ × 28 ¾ inches
Collection of the artist

Abyss, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 30 ¾ × 23 ¼ inches
Private collection

Ferry, 2008
Watercolor, 8 ¾ × 10 inches
Private collection

A Lady Bug's View of the World, 1970
Oil on canvas, 17 × 23 ¾ inches
Private collection

Mary Whyte grew up in rural Bainbridge, Ohio, about twenty-five miles east of Cleveland, her actual birthplace in 1953. The family home was a rambling house on twelve acres with woods, two streams, an apple orchard, and a setup for trap shooting. The address was Chagrin Road, which led to the nearby town of Chagrin Falls, where the young artist often biked to use the library.

From an early age Whyte aspired to be an artist. In the second grade, when she wanted pictures for her room, her mother, Betty, encouraged her by saying, “if you want art in your room, draw it yourself.” One of her first artworks was a copy of a Winnie the Pooh illustration. Her first studio was her bedroom, where the windowsill or her bed served as her easel. Her father, Donald, supported her youthful ambitions and gave her a set of oil paints; her first oil painting was a fanciful reverie of a boy on a log playing with his sailboat.

A Boy and His Dog, 1965
Oil on board, 8 × 10 inches
Collection of the artist

Drawn completely from her imagination, the setting is bucolic and shows a red barn, lotus blossoms, and a pond like those that surrounded her family home. Her first sale came as an eighth-grader. While visiting relatives in the resort town of Sea Girt, New Jersey, Whyte did a pen-and-ink sketch of a local inn. Her aunt presented the drawing to the innkeeper, negotiating a price of twenty dollars, which delighted the teenager. At age sixteen she did “word pictures,” many consisting of profiles of famous men; one was of Abraham Lincoln, within which she wrote the Gettysburg Address, and another cleverly used the lyrics “Once there was a silly old ram” from the popular 1950s song “High Hopes.”

For years Whyte made pen-and-ink studies that became the family's Christmas cards—a foretaste of her interest in seasons—and a tradition that she continued later in life with Paper Angel, a playful image of fresh young model.

During the summer of 1970, under the tutelage of her French teacher, she and fifteen classmates embarked on an eight-week trip to France and Switzerland. When he asked her if she knew the work of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, she had to admit she had never heard of him. The trip opened her eyes to great art and architecture as well as to a cuisine and culture quite different from that of northeast Ohio. Her adept drawing of Paris documents some of her impressions of the foreign capital.

Like many young and promising artists, Whyte focused much of her energy on portraits of friends and family. She found that her older brother Tim was a willing sitter. Her sensitively handled drawing of him hints at her future skills as a draftsperson and her ability to capture a likeness. She later acknowledged that she probably sold only one of these early endeavors, but she learned a lifelong lesson. “I started painting people in watercolor when I was in high school. My first attempts were predictably muddy and overworked, but I was enthralled with both the power and delicacy of the medium. At the time I had no intention of being a portrait painter, but after I graduated from art school folks began asking me for paintings of their families. I soon discovered that I truly love painting people, and if someone was actually going to pay me to paint them, what could be better? It was like being paid to go to the amusement park.”

High Hopes Word Picture, 1970
Ink on paper, 12 × 15 inches
Collection of the artist

Christmas Card, 1969
Pen and ink on paper, 5 ¼ × 4 inches
Collection of the artist

Paper Angel, Christmas card, 2009
Watercolor, 23 ½ × 15 ½ inches
Private collection

Saint Michel, Paris, 1970
Graphite on paper, 9 ½ × 6 ½ inches
Collection of the artist

The first exhibition of Whyte's paintings and drawings took place at the Chagrin Valley Little Theater in 1973 and included a mix of still lifes, landscapes, and figure groups. The most notable painting was one done about fifteen miles from home in Burton, Ohio, the fourth-largest Amish community in the world. A sizable canvas rendered in a style reminiscent of Depression-era murals, the painting shows a scene of carriages and families on the historic village green. A large two-story building with a white porch serves as a backdrop. Horse-drawn buggies and a handful of plainly dressed people dominate a barren foreground, and a diagonal line of trees to the right creates the illusion of space. Because of its local history, a member of the community purchased it for one hundred dollars and placed it at the library in Bainbridge. Unfortunately the present location of the painting is unknown, although a photograph of the proud artist and crisp preparatory drawings record its visual power.

Tim, 1969
Graphite on paper, 14 ½ × 10 inches
Collection of the artist

Whyte continued to depict Amish scenes, precursors to her later work with the Gullah residents of Johns Island. Both groups represent cultures with deep historic roots and closely held religious beliefs. The Amish “plain people” forgo modernization, choosing to live simple, family-oriented lives without machines. They assiduously avoid the temptations—especially smoking, drinking, and promiscuity—of contemporary society. Their lives are regimented, even down to the design and color of their clothing. They eschew the use of tractors but are highly regarded for their agricultural skills and their rich farmland. “It wasn't the ‘quaintness’ of the Amish and the landscape that was inviting for me to paint…Here, I discovered, were people whose lives centered unswervingly around God and family, self-sufficient from the rest of the world. I wanted to capture as much as I could of it on paper, save it and protect it before it was changed and lost forever. I feared it was a community shrinking acre by acre and generation by generation as the modern world buffed up against it and frayed its corners.”

For Whyte, gaining access to the Amish presented its challenges, as photography was proscribed. She tells of one occasion when, after prowling around some fields, she set up her easel opposite a farmhouse and began to sketch. The family came home and promptly shut their curtains. Eventually a bearded patriarch came out and sat behind her, observing; gradually eight family members joined him and by doing so gave implicit permission for her to proceed. Their main concern was that she accurately portray the shape of their bonnets, the colors of their clothing, and the character of their beards.

Although clearly talented and dedicated, Whyte had limited exposure to formal art education. As a high school student, she took a six-week class for adults with Florian Lawton (1921–2011), a northeast Ohio artist and member of the American Watercolor Society. From him she learned the importance of using quality materials, a lesson she continues to impart to her own students. When sixty of his paintings were exhibited at the Butler Institute of Art in 2009, his work was described glowingly: “A virtuoso in the watercolor medium, Lawton's flawless technique and romantic appreciation of his subject matter evoke a strong emotional resonance. His controlled washes of color and close observation of direct light reflect the influence of the best of the watercolor tradition, in particular the art of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Andrew Wyeth.” Although Whyte does not remember that Lawton spoke specifically of these three artists during his class, she openly acknowledges that they have served as important touchstones for her own work and that Lawton was instrumental in teaching her about the possibilities of watercolor. Fortuitously, a high school boyfriend gave her a copy of David McCord's 1971 book on Wyeth, a now-dog-eared volume still cherished today with a place of honor in her studio. Bait Shack, her first finished watercolor, with its decrepit building and brown palette, demonstrates the impact that Wyeth's winter scenes had on the emerging artist.

Mary with Burton Amish scene
From the Chagrin Valley Times, June 28, 1973
Photograph by Bruce Krobusek

Amish Carriages, 1973
Graphite on paper, 17 × 13 ¾ inches
Collection of the artist

An Amish Barn, 1972
Graphite on paper, 12 × 17 ¾ inches
Collection of the artist

On announcing her intention to attend art school, Whyte encountered some initial resistance from her businessman-father, who declared, “I didn't raise you to be a goddamn hippie.” Determined, she planned to move out of the family home, get a job as a waitress, and, through the housing authority, find a place to live near the Cleveland Institute of Art. Because she was underage, she needed her father's permission to sign the lease; he relented about art school when he saw the disreputable location where she proposed to live, and he offered to assist her. She investigated various art schools; at the Rhode Island School of Design, she found students with spray-painted bodies making sculpture out of black plastic. Hoping for something more conventional, she enrolled in the Tyler School of Art, affiliated with Philadelphia's Temple University. In the early 1970s, Tyler had its own campus in the suburbs at Elkins Park, but it was sufficiently close to downtown that Whyte could easily enjoy the city's offerings. The school was known for its progressive curriculum, which included the liberal arts, but her instructors were largely cool to her traditional approach. “I did a still life with some of my mother's tea cups. My instructor asked why, and I said I liked looking at them. He said that was no reason.” Years later, as an established artist, she returned to paint the blue-and-white china set because she still loved its color and translucency.

Bait Shack, 1969
Watercolor on paper, 15 × 18 inches
Private collection

Shore Still Life, 1989
Watercolor on paper, 19 × 24 inches
Private collection

Because Whyte promised her father that she would get a teaching certificate—“something to fall back on”—she took some classes in acting and creative writing as well as one entitled catastrophic geology. Her concentration, however, was in art, with courses in drawing, graphic design, sculpture, and painting. A class in illustration inspired her to create her own children's book about a fat little whale who flies, part Dumbo and part Peter Pan. The story line is that the secret to flying is believing that you can. During her sophomore year Whyte drew a compelling self-portrait entitled Exploration, one of an ongoing series that shows her wearing an amazing hat.

She believes an elaborate hat and costume add a great deal to a self-portrait and intentionally deflect from the actual subject. In addition, this early self-portrait is rich in a variety of patterns and textures that can be found, for example, in her poncho and the cable-knit sweater behind her. Making notations in her sketchbook during a class with Roger Anliker, a famously strict painting instructor, Whyte copied down several meaningful phrases: “Painting is color, drawing is everything else,” and “The power to manipulate at will is the real strength of the artist.” Both maxims have served Whyte well in her own career.

Looking back on her experience at Tyler, she admits that she may have been something of a fish out of water: “I wish I could say there was a class or instructor I found particularly valuable, but the general atmosphere in art schools at that time (mid-1970s) was not favorable to representational art or classical training.” Most art schools had moved away from formal drawing classes and strict regimens, allowing students to go where they might. On occasion Whyte found her instructors' criticism somewhat harsh. Of her watercolor The Bucket, she was informed it was too Wyeth-like, despite its riot of rich greens.

She did enjoy her junior year in Rome, as part of the school's study-abroad program, and immersed herself in the culture, language, and gastronomy of the ancient city. While there she painted mostly landscapes. She was disappointed that there was so little interest in watercolor during her college years. “There was one watercolor class offered at Tyler, the year I studied in Rome. That was where the instructor said to me ‘Oh, I guess you know what you are doing,’ and offered no other advice or criticism the rest of the semester. Hardly considered a class, but it is on the record.” Despite the lack of instruction in her preferred medium, Whyte graduated cum laude in 1976 with a bachelor of fine arts and a teaching certificate.

Exploration, 1973
Graphite on paper, 27 × 19 ¾ inches
Collection of the artist

The first week at Tyler, Whyte, a willowy young woman, met Smith Coleman, a handsome young man from Dallas known to his friends as Smitty. They married in 1977 and have been artistic partners ever since, she as a painter and he as a talented frame maker. During art school, they explored Philadelphia's museums; they also made their way to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and the Brandywine River Museum, which had opened in 1971 and emphasized the work of N. C. Wyeth, his son Andrew, and noted American illustrators such as Howard Pyle. These experiences may have influenced her as much as her actual coursework at Tyler.

After graduation Whyte found employment in the field of graphic design; she did logos and advertising layouts on a freelance basis. Together she and Coleman ambitiously opened Studio Coleman, a gallery and frame shop over a tailor's business on Butler Pike in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Reflecting on this phase of her life, Whyte recalled, “A few years later, Henry J. Brusca, who would become one of our first true benefactors, came into the gallery and asked if we would like to move our small enterprise into his building—a restored house built in 1735 in Horsham, Pennsylvania. Henry had a beautiful antique shop of early American antiques on the first floor, and we put the gallery on the second floor. Smitty used the third-floor attic to do framing. Henry was like a father to us, and it is from him we learned to love antiques—as we often accompanied him to antique shows, setting up, decorating the booth, selling, etc. No one could pack a van better and tighter than Smitty. I swear he could put three houses of furniture into one van and still have room left over to swing a bat. Henry bought many paintings of mine, just to help us along so that we could pay the nominal rent. At the very first show opening I had at a gallery in Philadelphia, Henry, beaming with pride, presented me with a giant bouquet of red roses.”

The Bucket, 1972
Watercolor on paper, 14 × 18 ½ inches
Collection of the artist

Close-up of The Bucket

Smith Coleman and Mary Whyte, 1978
Photograph by Michael W. Heayn
Collection of the artist

Corky, 1977
Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 ½ inches
Private collection

Attempting to find her own voice, Whyte painted a variety of subjects during this period: portraits, pastoral landscapes, and some figure groups. The portraits were largely of women, and the opportunities came through word of mouth. They were the mainstay of her work at the time, averaging about two a month. Whyte has high standards for her portraits: “Anyone can do a good likeness. The thing is to paint a good painting, and one that will interest someone who does not know the person.” The likeness of Cordelia is proof of this statement. Unusual in its vertical format—selected to fit a frame the subject had bought in an antique shop—Cordelia appears as an affable and relaxed middle-aged woman. The image is enlivened by the stripes of her dress and the mix of cool and warm hues.

Cordelia, 1979
Oil on canvas, 25 × 15 inches
Private collection

Smith Bedford Coleman, Jr., 1990
Watercolor on paper, 20 ¼ × 16 inches
Private collection

Other portraits by Whyte of bankers, university trustees, and suburban housewives are more formal and less intimate. One exceptionally endearing likeness, which was not a commissioned portrait, is the watercolor of the artist's father-in-law, Smith Bedford Coleman, Jr. The artist regarded him as a true and kind gentleman, a thoughtful man who took life at a leisurely pace. She painted him at ease and in nature in the front yard of her home. For Whyte scenery is less interesting than the human face, but she understands how important landscape is as a backdrop.

Early Spring Rabbits, 1978
Watercolor on paper, 16 × 22 inches
Private collection

Looking back, she has admitted that she was a bit at sea during this period: “I knew I wanted to paint, but didn't know what I wanted to express. For several years I painted a shopping list of subject matter: still lifes, landscapes, flowers, nudes, animals, and seascapes. Although most of the paintings found a home on someone's wall, none of them were truly aligned with my most passionate feelings, simply because I didn't know what those emotions were.”

Some of her forays had their humorous sides. In 1978 she did a series featuring rabbits—a subject immortalized by Albrecht Dürer—and, like his 1503 watercolor, Early Spring Rabbits is an intensely detailed and focused rendering. Whyte's, however, has a narrative element missing in Dürer's quasi-scientific approach. In order to study her subjects, an enterprising Whyte approached the owner of a pet store and asked if she could rent a rabbit for a short while. He obligingly agreed. She remembers that “for weeks I had some beautiful rabbits hopping around the studio, chewing on sketchbooks and light cords.”

Another project involving animals and her skills as an illustrator was a series of four interpretations of Noah's Ark, which she painted in watercolor and had reproduced as prints. All are ingenious and inventive, but the last one, which illustrates the ark landing with animals spilling out all over, is perhaps the wittiest. Instead of the canonic “two by two” the animals have reproduced heartily during their forty days at sea.

While Whyte was painting, her husband, Smith Coleman, was making frames for area artists and showing some of their work at the Horsham gallery, located not far from the noted impressionist art colony in Bucks County. One artist in particular, John Falter (1910–1982), became good friends with Coleman and Whyte. Falter was a successful illustrator with 185 Saturday Evening Post covers to his credit, more even than Norman Rockwell. Falter and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, frequently enjoyed picnics and parties with the younger couple and initially they did not realize Whyte was an aspiring artist. After a while she shyly admitted to him that she was a painter. Eager to nurture her talent, he paid her way to attend an oil painting workshop with figurative painter Jan De Ruth (1922–1991) in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Falter also gave her Gordon Hendricks's large volume on Winslow Homer, another source of inspiration.

Noah's Ark: The Landing, 1982
Lithograph, 20 × 19 ½ inches
Collection of the artist

The couples discussed Falter's specialty, the art of illustration, which was also well represented in the area by Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth, two masters of the discipline. This emphasis on narrative clearly affected Whyte, who relishes telling the stories behind the people in her paintings. Her major publications—Alfreda's World, Working South, and Down Bohicket Road—are substantially about her experiences meeting and getting to know her subjects. Falter's influence and Whyte's penchant for storytelling are further mirrored in her later success with illustrating children's books. In addition, the Falters served as role models who demonstrated that artists could have normal, healthy lives. “Looking back, if there was one artist who had directly influenced my life it would have been John Falter. He was the one who showed me that being an artist wasn't just about smooshing paint on a surface. From Falter I learned that being an artist meant fully experiencing this amazing and surprising world, and finding the artistic means to share what we have discovered with others.”

Following her workshop with De Ruth, Whyte painted a series of female nudes. She joined a group that drew from live models, but because she was a latecomer, she was assigned a position in the back row. Unhappy, she quit and hired her own models—including her housekeeper—to pose for her. She frequently enlivened her compositions with colorful textiles, as seen in Indian Blanket, where the figure stands dramatically and is vividly lit. The nudes were well received and sold well, although Whyte was dismayed when one gallery visitor referred to them as “bedroom art,” implying that the only place they could be hung was in a bedroom.

Indian Blanket, 1983
Oil on canvas, 45 × 34 inches
Private collection

Tired of apartment living, in 1983 Whyte and Coleman bought a house in Souderton, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Mennonite country. It was situated on a hill overlooking a stream and had a space with windows in the basement for her painting studio and another room for his photography work. They wanted to immerse themselves in the community and to experience a rural farming area. The surrounding landscape inspired The Good Earth, a large plein-air oil of a Mennonite farm.

Using a hefty easel that Falter had given her, Whyte dragged it to the same spot every day for a week. Its pastoral subject, complete with grazing cows, a tidy farmhouse, and silos, is reminiscent of John Constable's renderings of the English countryside. Cows were the focus of several sizable canvases, including a triptych, all of which tended to sell readily.

Ivy, 1979
Oil on canvas, 24 × 18 inches
Private collection

The Good Earth, 1990
Oil on canvas, 30 × 40 inches
Collection of the artist

More narrative than these paintings of scenery are her depictions of Jennifer Smith, a young girl whom Whyte first painted at age eight. Inveigling her to model by rewarding her with jelly donuts, the artist portrayed her lighting a pumpkin with a friend. With its nighttime setting, a pumpkin sitting on a post, and a view of a distant farm, it recalls similar paintings by N. C. Wyeth. For Whyte the activity conjured memories of her own childhood, as she wrote in a handout for a gallery exhibition: “I remember the October sky at dusk when everything had begun to turn to shadow and there was still just a touch of color left. I guess it was the only time we were allowed to play with matches.” According to Whyte, Jennifer was “the most patient of all my models; she never grows restless and is willing to work hour after hour.”

Lighting the Pumpkin, 1979
Oil on canvas, 20 × 30 inches
Private collection

Harvest Day, 1979
Oil on canvas, 36 × 36 inches
Private collection

In Harvest Day, Jennifer modeled for both girls sitting on a fence in a pastoral scene that resembles the work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Its lush landscape, the robust and rosy girls, and even the bonnet that obscures Jennifer's face connect with similar motifs in the French master's art.

The most visually powerful of the Jennifer series, Perchance to Dream, employs one of Whyte's favorite devices—a quilt with bright colors and patterns. The painting is also prophetic of her later work with the Gullah people.

Extending her earlier fascination with the Amish, Whyte painted Wash Day, also notable for its use of colorful quilts. She successfully labored to capture the sense of wind, a visual concept that may have been inspired by Winslow Homer.

Recognition came her way in 1984, when the organizers of the Philadelphia Art Show selected Figure Eights for their poster. In devising this composition, Whyte hired local models and made a mock-up of a billowing skirt, which she stuffed with tissue to hold its shape. Despite these efforts, Whyte later realized some inaccuracies: “The figures were from some old photos and my imagination—I did manage to get the skating form wrong, and incorrectly depicted one of the skaters executing a tight circle on the outside leg.” Like her earlier Amish subjects, the skaters are wholesome youths, enjoying the outdoors and physical activity. There is a certain timeless quality to the image, which is reinforced by the generalized setting—a frozen pond somewhere. The depiction is also reminiscent of N. C. Wyeth's classic painting for the cover of Mary Mapes Dodge's Hans Brinker; or, the Silver Skates. Whyte's canvas appealed so much to a woman with five daughters that she purchased it.

Perchance to Dream, 1984
Oil on canvas, 41 × 50 inches
Private collection

Wash Day, 1985
Oil on canvas, 16 × 24 inches
Private collection

Two years later Whyte embarked on a series dedicated to the twelve months, which was part of a solo show at the Allerbescht Gallery in Telford, Pennsylvania. She explored seasonal changes to the landscape and corresponding activities—an approach that she continued later in her career. Whyte felt it would challenge her to develop a thematic thread; she also believed the set of twelve watercolors would make an engaging exhibition as they all featured children. And it did. “If I heard it once, I heard it fifty times, someone saying ‘Oh, that looks like my child when he was that age.’ I think that's a fine compliment that they can relate to a painting that much.”

Winslow Homer, 1836–1910
Fresh Air, 1878
Watercolor with opaque white highlights over charcoal on cream,
moderately thick, rough-textured wove paper, 20 1/6 × 14 inches
Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 41.1087

Figure Eights, 1984
Oil on canvas, 23 × 38 inches
Private collection

March, 1987
Watercolor on paper, 20 ¾ × 27 ¼ inches
Collection of the artist

January is illustrated by crack the whip—a game immortalized by Homer—and the subject of February is tobogganing. A boy in an inner tube epitomizes August while December is represented by a girl feeding birds. The depiction of March evolved out of a portrait commission; Whyte had met a couple while skiing in Montana, and they asked her to paint their son. She went to Indianapolis to do the young man's portrait, and, after it was completed, she asked him to pose for her. She made a kite tail to represent the arrival of spring and painted his profile against a hazy green Pennsylvania landscape.

This methodology of combining elements from different sources—rather than strictly adhering to a realist agenda—became Whyte's modus operandi. She admits that she happily alters details and adds props, contending it is more important to catch the feeling of the moment than to be absolutely accurate. In an interview section of her instructional DVD, she admits: “Of all my paintings not one of them is something that is exactly as I saw it, but is of course exactly what I felt…. I invent lots of stuff; I bring in objects that I feel somehow will promote the feeling or the objective that I have for the painting. I don't hesitate to change the color of a dress, the line of a chair, or bring another object into the painting that will help the message or the overall emotion of the painting.”

During her years near Philadelphia, Whyte's artistic energy was expended by heading in different directions. While she had considerable sales of portraits, nudes, and landscapes, Studio Coleman was not an overwhelming success, perhaps because many prospective clients gravitated toward New York City for their art purchases. This, plus Whyte's bout with cancer and an ensuing regimen of chemotherapy, convinced the couple that after almost two decades in the area, it was time for a change of venue. In Alfreda's World, she acknowledged, “We knew that we had to move to a place that would give us deeper meaning to our lives—a place where we could reinvent ourselves and start over.” Through friends they had been introduced to the Charleston area and had vacationed there on several occasions, so in 1991 they took the plunge and bought a house on Seabrook Island. They were enamored by the quiet, the gentleness of the sea air, and the poetry of the Spanish moss that hangs from live oak trees. “What resulted from that move would, for us, change the focus and direction of everything.”

Black on Whyte, 1982
Oil on canvas, 36 × 28 inches
Collection of the artist

Dunes, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 12 × 9 inches
Private collection

The Homecoming, 1992
Watercolor on paper, 25 × 20 ½ inches
Private collection

One of Whyte and Coleman's first guests in their new home was a friend from Ohio, Constance McGeorge, a teacher who had taken one of Whyte's workshops. When her visitor asked how the move went, Whyte replied, through the eyes of their golden retriever, Boomer: “confusion, disruption, disorientation.” From this conversation emerged Boomer's Big Day, a happy collaboration that thrust Whyte into the world of illustrating children's picture books. The introductory synopsis captures the dog's sentiments: “Boomer's ready for his morning walk. Here's his leash. There's the door. But try as he might, he can't get anyone to pay attention to him. The humans in the house don't rush out the door after breakfast as they normally do. And, most confusing of all, strangers arrive to pack all the things in Boomer's house into boxes. There's definitely something unusual going on.” Finding himself confused, Boomer searches for his tennis ball under a bed, his large nose almost a caricature. Another scene captures the chaos he experiences; shown from above with boxes everywhere, it features a colorful quilt on the bed. The next two pages are in direct contrast: blank, except for a recumbent Boomer and the words “Before Boomer knew it, the house was empty.” But after a long road trip in a crowded car, Boomer, like his owners, makes the adjustment to life at Seabrook Island and learns to love walks on the beach.

Boomer under the Bed, from Boomer's Big Day, 1994
Watercolor on paper, 9 × 19 ½ inches
Collection of the artist

Whyte put her considerable skills to work and came to understand fully the parameters of picture books, such as avoiding the gutter, planning space for the text, and keeping the visuals as simple as the story. Her mentor, John Falter, and their numerous discussions about Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth prepared her well for this kind of work. The images of Boomer racing across the page are enchanting, his facial expressions delightful, and his body language totally in character. The openness of Whyte's watercolor brushwork and the light palette make for fresh and engaging images. Boomer's Big Day was followed by two other books featuring him as the protagonist: Boomer Goes to School and Boomer's Big Surprise. In the former his daffy personality overflows as he enjoys a day at school spent playing with the children and disrupting the classroom. In the latter the storyline is more moralistic: Boomer is forced to share the stage with a young puppy, whom he finally befriends after much consternation.

Chronicle Books accepted McGeorge and Whyte's first book, and Whyte recalls how “it was like we had won the lottery, and we had a ball doing the story and the next several books. We agreed to do a book a year together as long as it was fun—and it was, for a good ten years.” McGeorge mirrors Whyte's sentiment and remembers their collaboration as “a blast—I can't call it work.” Together they set Waltz of the Scarecrows in the kind of farm country familiar from their childhoods in Ohio.

The young girl resembles the artist when she was a youth and the grandparents are modeled on neighbors from Seabrook Island; other friends dressed up and waltzed for the artist so that she could photograph them. Whyte depicts herself in several scenes, including the illustration “Harvest Ball,” because, as she explains, “I needed another model in a hurry.” The scarecrow concept inspired an unusual self-portrait, where Whyte dons the fanciful hat she is shown wearing in the childen's book. However, its playfulness and vibrant color belie this interpretation; the likeness is another instance of the artist dressing herself up in a manner that deflects from too much self-examination.

For Chestnut, McGeorge and Whyte moved from rural Ohio to South Carolina for the setting. They walked the streets of historic Charleston, planning a route for their central character—a hardworking, loyal, and clever horse who saves the day while his owner sleeps; he successfully makes all the deliveries on time so that a birthday party for the mayor's daughter can move forward. The storyline permitted Whyte to paint such well-known structures as the Exchange Building and St. Michael's Church as part of the backdrop. A double spread shows a delightful aerial view of the city, dotted with red rooftops.

Harvest Ball, from Waltz of the Scarecrows, 1998
Watercolor on paper, 17 ¾ × 27 inches
Collection of the artist

Scarecrow Self-portrait, 1999
Watercolor on paper, 29 × 20
Private collection

Cover for Chestnut, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 12 ½ × 10 ½ inches
Private collection

Before abandoning children's books altogether, however, Whyte illustrated three books for a Japanese publishing house, an interesting experience that included an all-expense-paid trip to Japan. She found the firm's approach to be didactic, with a tendency toward books about feelings and manners, with much less fantasy. In a spread for The Color of Sky a boy wears a distinctly American polo shirt under a Japanesque sky made from simple, bold colors and origami shapes. On the left is space for the Japanese text under which the following is scrolled: “Listening to someone's story may lead to understanding.”

Like the nearby city of Charleston, Seabrook Island is steeped in history; two 2,000-acre plantations there used slave labor to grow Sea Island cotton, and later, in the early 1900s, sportsmen came for hunting and fishing. Around 1950 the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina acquired 300 acres for a retreat and camp for children, and in 1970 private developers purchased 1,100 acres for a residential community with a golf course and equestrian center. Along with its neighbor Kiawah Island, Seabrook has attracted retirees, vacationing families, and second-home owners. To get to the islands, one traverses Johns Island along Bohicket Road—a study in contrasts: former plantations, small cinder-block homes, and flashy fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.

A canopy of centuries-old live oaks swathed in Spanish moss provides a rhythmic alternation of sunlight and shadow, and each tree is marked with a bold yellow-and-black striped sign to ward off motorists. Bohicket Road is the “connecting thread” that links the artist's world on Seabrook Island to another older, colorful, and evocative tradition. It is here that Whyte found inspiration—in the landscape, the people, and in a culture very different from her own.

Initially Whyte expected she would paint the countryside of her adopted home, as she did in Cows and Sunflowers, a transitional canvas that is a pastiche of Pennsylvania livestock and South Carolina vegetation. She also thought she might be doing a few commissioned portraits of white children, such as Andrew, but this was not to be.

Shortly after her arrival she agreed to teach a workshop. Finding herself in need of models, she looked to the Hebron Saint Francis Senior Center on Bohicket Road. In a South Carolina Educational Television interview on National Public Radio she described her experience: “Here I was, a little Yankee girl wandering into this church one day, and they literally embraced me and invited me back and truly changed my life and the direction of my whole painting career, and little did I know that over the next twenty years I would be doing dozens and dozens of paintings of these women, their children, and their grandchildren.”

Listening to Someone's Story, from The Color of Sky, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 11 × 17 ½ inches
Collection of the artist

Down Bohicket Road, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 21 ¾ × 18 ¾ inches
Private collection

Cows and Sunflowers, 1996
Oil on canvas, 23 ½ × 35 ½ inches
Private collection

When pressed by the interviewer, University of South Carolina history professor Walter Edgar, Whyte admitted that she could never explain why this community opened their arms to her, not only a white woman artist but also a true outsider. “I'm really from off,” she told him. After living in the South for two decades, the artist views the fact that she is an interloper as a distinct advantage.

Andrew, 1992
Watercolor on paper, 24 × 19 inches
Private collection

New Book, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 13 ½ × 13 ½ inches
Private collection

Twirl, 2011
Watercolor, 18 ½ × 18 ½ inches
Private collection

Cool Breeze, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 47 ½ × 39 ⅛ inches
Private collection

Not burdened by the legacy of slavery and prejudice in the same way that her artistic predcessor, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, was, Whyte can more easily see the humanity in all people. Verner had emerged in the 1920s as one of the leading figures of the Charleston Renaissance, a movement that helped to bring about the economic, artistic, and cultural renewal of lowcountry South Carolina. The renaissance and preservation of old Charleston—promoted then as America's most historic city—were fueled by a coalition of artists, writers, preservationists, and a few politicians. Verner, through her numerous etchings of street scenes and architectural gems, her pastels of flower vendors, and her copiously illustrated books, developed a following among an ever-increasing number of tourists. Because her clientele was largely from the North and the Midwest, she provided them with the kind of imagery they expected. When it came to Verner's portrayals of African Americans, that meant quaint depictions that verge on caricature. Her popular pastels, such as Flowers Ma'am?, focused on the women who sold their flowers and baskets at the city's major intersections. In fact, when these women were threatened with a new ordinance that would prohibit their activities, Verner came to their rescue, arguing “that Charleston had more free advertisement in nationally known magazines than any other city in the country and that in every picture a flower woman was strategically placed to give local color.” Even Verner's rival, Alfred Hutty—a Midwesterner like Whyte—freely exaggerated facial features and postures in his depictions of African Americans.

Close-up of Cool Breeze

Guardian Angel, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 21 × 28 inches
Private collection

Mary Whyte, on the other hand, has transcended the biases of her upbringing, and her more tolerant patrons lack the narrow-minded expectations of Verner's and Hutty's. She says of their work, “They are caricatures and stereotypes and weren't of real, true, honest people…. That was an era, a document of those times.” While there is a nostalgic element in Whyte's work, it is not sentimental; rather, it celebrates and preserves particular lifestyles. She sees a comforting analogy with the Amish people she knew as a teenager who, like the residents of Bohicket Road, are close to the land, family-centered, and religious.

Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, 1883–1979
Flowers Ma'am?, circa 1940
Pastel on silk, 15 ¼ × 11 ½ inches
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard L. Long, Jr., Charleston, S.C.

At the Hebron Center, which she attends almost weekly, Whyte found warmth and solace and an introduction to Gullah customs, language, and cooking. On that first day, she encountered the women busy in the kitchen, and after one look at her—tall, thin, and white—they immediately determined their mission was to put “meat on her bones.” They offered her a plate piled high with fried fish, macaroni and cheese, red rice, collard greens, and cornbread. The artist ate with relish. The first to welcome her, embrace her, and feed her was Alfreda Gibbs Smiley LaBoard.

Church Picnic, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 4 ⅞ × 6 inches
Private collection

Soon the older black woman became her good friend and artistic muse. Later, during an interview for a television documentary, Alfreda recalled their first meeting: “The first time Miss Mary come to the center, we were there sewing and cooking, and in walk this white girl, kind of scraggly an’ all…. Here was this skinny, kind of pitiful white girl comin’ in, not knowin’ where she was goin’ or what she was looking for, and definitely in need of some love. So the first thing we do is we give her a big plate of food. You know, to fatten her up a bit. God know I been tryin’ to fatten her up for years, but it still not workin’…. So I keep feedin’ her and lovin’ her because it what she need. It what everybody need.” In addition to sustenance and love, Alfreda unknowingly set a new course for Whyte's paintings.

Usually about fifteen women congregate weekly at the center to pray, sing, socialize, quilt, and eat. Descendants of slaves who had labored on area plantations, they tenaciously hold on to their Gullah culture, an amalgam of African, Jamaican Creole, and Barbadian dialects blended with English, and manifested not only in linguistics but also in crafts, agriculture, superstitions, religion, and cooking. As they go about their various activities, and while they share their triumphs and tribulations, Whyte sketches them. She also regularly joins in: she cuts squares for the quilts, threads needles, helps clean up, and, on special days, passes out bingo cards. She has earned their trust and respect, and they—and their children and grandchildren—have become willing models for her work. Her paintings reflect mutual warm feelings. When asked the challenging question, “Why do you paint African Americans?,” she responds: “Because I want to paint. Because I want to feel. Because I once thought I would never make it to my fortieth birthday, and I want to experience every little bit of gritty sand, pungent smell, and cock-eyed smile this amazing life has to offer.”

Whyte was deeply enriched by her friendship with Alfreda, who at the weekly gatherings gave informal talks on life's lessons, sometimes scolding, sometimes cheerleading. Alfreda had raised many children and grandchildren, assuming a role not unlike her grandmother's, the island's midwife and herbalist. Alfreda had grown up nearby on a Wadmalaw Island plantation, where she and her family did the backbreaking work of picking crops.

Whyte, hoping Alfreda would record some of her memories for her offspring, gave the older woman a notebook, but somehow she never found time to write them down. One day they drove over to see Alfreda's childhood home, and Whyte recorded her own reactions: “This place wasn't lushly overgrown with the forgiveness of time like so many parts of the island, but submissive and dusty under the beating sun…. We finally pulled up in front of a tiny peeling gray shack. The front door yawned open, revealing bare floorboards and a sunless interior. A massive oak tree shielded the house from direct sun, but hadn't quite kept out all the harshness of the past.” The site was filled with memories good and bad, of hard times and of love, of enslaved ancestors and more recent victims of lynching. The tree had its own symbolism, as Whyte recounts: “[Alfreda] had once told me about a tree, a tree where several of the islanders had paid their final debts to the plantation owner. She did not witness this herself, but her mother had.”

Hebron Church, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 11 × 13 inches
Private collection

Alfreda, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 15 × 13 inches
Private collection

Lipstick, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 20 ⅛ × 20 ⅛ inches
Private collection

Sunday Dinner, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 22 × 19 inches
Private collection

Wednesday Chores, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 38 × 28 ½ inches
Private collection

Sliced Apples, 1999
Watercolor on paper, 27 × 21 inches
Private collection

Finishing the Quilt, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 19 × 17 ½ inches
Private collection

Alfreda, 2012
Graphite on paper, 15 × 11 inches
Private collection

Dayclean, 1998
Watercolor on paper, 14 × 16 inches
Private collection

Alfreda had stories to tell that gave the artist great pleasure and poignant insights. One day when Whyte visited Alfreda at her simple home, Whyte wondered about a certain sweater her friend was wearing, an olive-colored cardigan with colorful patches on it. Alfreda explained that after Hurricane Hugo had devastated Johns Island and the surrounding area, her church had received several boxes of clothing. One held brand-new sweaters that had intentionally been cut so that they could not be resold. When the artist expressed dismay, Alfreda said: “Child, you best be getting over that one. Every time someone do you wrong, you can't keep goin’ on about it. And you can't be worrying about what other people have, either. People always worryin’ about someone else got more than them. None of this belong to us anyway…. It's God's. All this belong to God. Everything. Even this raggedy ol’ sweater. It ain't really Freda's sweater. No ma'am. It belong to God. I just taking care of it for him.” Ever resourceful and upbeat, Alfreda covered the holes with patches decorated with flowers, “Flowers, just like the Garden of Eden,” she explained.

The Hugo Sweater is a powerful tribute to the indomitable spirit of the artist's friend. In the painting Alfreda's robust figure looms in the foreground silhouetted against a wall with peeling pale-blue paint. Her large scale is exaggerated by the worm's-eye perspective and by her embrace of an oversized bunch of collards. The composition exudes a sense of grandeur that elevates mundane and quotidian details to an ennobling humanity. For a long while Alfreda LaBoard was the artist's primary model and dearest friend, and, in gratitude for their friendship, the artist was often generous and lent a helping hand to the matriarch and her family.

The focus of the Hebron group is the making of quilts—an age-old craft with roots in Africa. Quilts are metaphors, as the artist has explained, “We are like scraps of fabric: some are beautiful, and some are torn; some are colorful, and some are faded. Each piece of fabric is unique, and not particularly useful by itself. It is only when we stitch the pieces together side by side that we have a complete quilt. Only when every piece touches the others is the quilt finished and beautiful and whole.”

The quilts also have an important purpose: they are sold to raise money for the senior center and the church, a historic white-frame structure that had been built by former slaves shortly after the Civil War. Much of the wood had come from a shipment of timber that had shipwrecked near the mouth of the Edisto River. The church's simple yet classic design was modeled on the more substantial and upscale Johns Island Presbyterian Church further inland on Bohicket Road. Just like the Hugo sweater, the practical reusing of available materials produced a serviceable structure for island residents. Similarly, much of the fabric for the quilts comes from property owners of Kiawah and Seabrook who regularly rid their closets of passé designer clothing.

Whyte knows and greatly appreciates quilts and has a fine collection from her husband's family neatly folded in a pie safe in her kitchen. For her these lovingly crafted objects serve as important components of her paintings, both thematically and visually. Her interest in them predates her arrival in South Carolina, as exemplified by such paintings as Perchance to Dream (page 78). Seventeen years later Whyte returned to the theme of a young girl dozing in Dream of the Ancestors.

The Hugo Sweater, 1997
Watercolor on paper, 23 × 24 inches
Private collection

Mama's Chores, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 20 ¾ × 29 ½ inches
Private collection

Lilly Sleeping, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 26 × 21 inches
Private collection

Here Dejonna, placed frontally and closer to the picture plane, is shown enveloped in a colorful quilt and highlighted by a warm light. The viewer can only wonder about her dreams: Are they of Africa? Slavery? Or, possibly, she dreams of her nurturing and loving great-great-grandmother who made this soft wrap. Whyte uses quilts as part of the narrative: the act of sewing them, indoors and out, airing them, and ironing them. They serve as both background and foreground elements. Quilts also have an emblematic quality: they are the connective fiber of the Hebron group and link one generation with another.

In Whyte's book Alfreda's World, fourteen of the thirty-seven paintings illustrated include a quilt. The second-most-frequent topic is cooking, with six illustrations, a reflection of the group's passion for food and the physical and spiritual nourishment it provides. The quilts supply Whyte with color, pattern, and texture, while cooking allows her to employ two of her favorite devices: smoke and steam. It is her masterful facility with watercolor that permits Whyte to simulate the effects of rising vapors.

Close-up of Lilly Sleeping

Dream of the Ancestors, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 21 × 21 inches
The Wright Southern Collection

Jubilation, 2005
Watercolor on paper, 20 × 29 inches
Private collection

Typically Whyte begins her compositions by painting the background with the broadest brush feasible. She has already worked out how she will arrange things through numerous pencil sketches—anywhere from three to twenty-five—and watercolor studies. For steam she tips her paper and floods it with water, then quickly lays down a swath of one color. Before it dries she goes back in and overlays it with another, keeping her surface very moist and blotting it with a paper towel if it gets too wet. She labors to keep everything fluid until she gets the effect she desires, often leaving passages of paper untouched. If the pigment gets too dry, she resorts to certain tricks for wetting the edges of a color area and making them bleed ever so slightly.

In Sister Heyward, for instance, almost one-third of the painting is dedicated to the steam that makes its way upward diagonally from the pot, framing and setting off Georgeanna Heyward's determined face. The steam curves and winds and becomes an essay in abstraction while the white curtain blows in the wind and forms a more geometric shape. Almost a jarring interruption is the realistically rendered hook which hangs down directly over her hand—a spooky element reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth's portraits of his friend and neighbor Karl Kuerner. The hook, however, is very subtle and does not distract from the focal point, which is Georgeanna's profile. Whyte elucidates her method in her carefully constructed how-to book Painting Portraits and Figures in Watercolor: “Although the soft edge of the steam is appealing, the eye will always be more attracted to a hard edge.”

Sister Heyward is also a superb example of Whyte's ability to paint the skin of African Americans, here illuminated so beautifully as the model turns to the light. This skill, which Whyte has labored to perfect since her move to South Carolina, has become an artistic hallmark. Her portraits of Alfreda, decked out in one of her Sunday hats, are further testament, as are her numerous paintings featuring her model Tesha. Whyte explains that there are many variables in painting skin tone, including lighting, surrounding color, and what the individual is wearing. Also, flesh—whether black or white—is not all one color: “Everyone's skin color has a predominance of red, yellow, or blue, which explains why we look better in certain colors…. Within the face's overall coloration there are always a myriad of interesting, nuanced colors. Many people have more ruddiness to the fleshier cheek and nose area and more violet tones in the areas of thinner skin, such as around the brow and eye area. Generally there is a cooler color beneath the nose around the mouth, particularly for men, who have a shadow of a beard.”

Sister Heyward, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 27 ¾ × 18 ¾ inches
Private collection

One of Whyte's favorite paintings by Andrew Wyeth is The Liberal, which clearly demonstrates how he layered and juxtaposed a variety of colors to create the sense of a ruddy complexion. Like the topknot depicted in The Liberal, the hats in both Alfreda (page 106) and Red (page 3) set off the face by virtue of the colors and their sculptural shapes.

Georgeanna Heyward and other women in the quilting group have served as engaging models. The matriarch at the Hebron Center was Mariah Taylor, age ninety-six and described by the artist as having “a regal bearing that was breathtaking.” Mariah was one of the first of the quilters Whyte depicted, in a lively painting called Queen.

Andrew Wyeth, 1917–2009
The Liberal, 1993
Watercolor on paper, 16 ¾ × 23 ¼ inches
Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art, Gift of Chicken and
Hurdle Lea, Tom and Susan O'Hanlan, and Jan and Glenn Spears
The Liberal, 1993 drybrush watercolor © Andrew Wyeth

The foreground is dominated by a multicolored quilt that Whyte herself purchased. Twenty years later, in Down Bohicket Road, the artist conceded, “I had no idea at the time [1992] that this one painting would be the catalyst for a body of work that would have such an impact on my life and career.” The composition is carefully worked out so that the diagonals of the quilt, with the foreground part out of focus, lead the eye to the main points of interest—Mariah's face and hands. The background is enlivened with the horizontals of the curtain, chair, and slats, which are thoroughly balanced by the verticals of chairs, window moldings, and picture frames. Despite all the visual information and details of clothing, it is nevertheless Mariah's personality that radiates throughout.

Orange Hat, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 17 ¾ × 18 ¾ inches
Private collection

Bean Soup, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 38 ½ × 28 inches
Private collection

Queen, 1992
Watercolor on paper, 26 × 20 inches
Private collection

Sing unto the Lord a New Song, 1992
Watercolor on paper, 26 × 30 inches
Private collection

Many artists over the centuries—Rembrandt, for example—have proclaimed that older sitters are more interesting than youthful ones; the common explanation is that their life experiences are reflected on their faces. Mariah, thinner than many of the other women, had an unusually expressive face, and, when wearing her eyeglasses on the end of her nose or her old straw hat cockeyed on her head, she lent herself to quasi-caricature. The sentiment of such paintings as Sing unto the Lord a New Song is reminiscent of some of Elizabeth O'Neill Verner's flower vendors.

Mariah, born in the first decade of the twentieth century, would have witnessed and known women like the one portrayed in Flowers Ma'am? (page 102). In her story about Mariah and the visit to her house to sketch her, Whyte has recounted how Mariah sat patiently for the artist, passing the time by singing her favorite hymn. When the sketch was complete, Whyte showed it to her model, who responded with great surprise. “Wha-ha-ha! Is da’ me?…I ne'er saw me look like da’!…Praise Jesus!” Mariah then touched the back of her head, working her fingers over the narrow braid there, which she had rarely seen, even in a mirror. When Mariah passed away, Whyte was one of only three white people in attendance at her funeral. Before the service began, all three were led to the front of the church, close to the casket. When Whyte inquired why they were so positioned, it was explained: “In Mariah's time, it was considered an honor to have a white person at a funeral. And the more honored you are, the closer you sit to the deceased.”

Other members of the Hebron Center's extended family—children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—soon became Whyte's models, offering a different sensibility to her paintings.

While the older women actively labor at their quilts, in the kitchen, or in their yards with clotheslines or crops, the young models typify a more playful and leisurely mood. Whyte asserts “working with children as models can be great fun. While the little ones get wiggly at times, I have found that in many ways they are easier to paint than adults. Children are rarely concerned with their hair or attire…. Most children are delighted to be the center of attention.” Among the youngest and most winsome are the subjects of Inchworm and Black-eyed Susan.

Both girls are engaged in something that they hold in their slightly pudgy fingers, but beyond that there are few similarities. The honey-colored girl in Inchworm is placed in the lower right quadrant of a vertical composition and faces into the sun, which illuminates her brow and casts pale-blue shadows on her white dress. The viewer's eye as it moves from left to right is naturally led to her, surrounded as she is by a large and bending stand of sunflowers. These are rendered in a general sort of way with fluid brushwork so as not to distract from the main point of interest. The endearing model in Black-eyed Susan stands at the center of the painting and looks directly out at the viewer with a hint of surprise on her face. The devices that frame her are a window molding in the upper left and a quilt with diagonal strips sewn into squares. The off-white clapboards of an old house further serve to set off the model, while the black-eyed susans behind her relate directly to the pattern in her dress. The narrative element in Black-eyed Susan is stronger, as there is the suggestion that the youngster has picked a forbidden flower and has been caught in the act.

Pinwheel, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 21 ¾ × 28 ½ inches
Private collection

Inchworm, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 28 ⅞ × 19 inches
Private collection

Props are integral to Whyte's depiction of children and often include some of the artist's favorite flowers. In Lilly the young model smilingly offers an oversized pot of the plant for which she was named. As in Inchworm, the figure is placed in the lower right, but here she is turned toward the viewer, and the flowers project forward. The darker leaves echo the shape of Lilly's braids, and the absence of background detail leads the viewer's eye toward her.

Black-eyed Susan, 1999
Watercolor on paper, 21 × 21 inches
Private collection

Lilly, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 29 × 21 ¾ inches
Private collection

Umbrellas are another hallmark of Whyte's portrayals of young people. They were also favored by her idol John Singer Sargent. In his 1911 watercolor Simplon Pass: Reading, the brilliant turquoise and purple of the parasols are reflected in the sitters’ clothing. While Sargent's models customarily used parasols to protect themselves from the sun, Whyte's young girls seem less familiar with the objects they are holding.

In Yellow Umbrella and Red Umbrella, the shape and color of the object are critical. In the former the umbrella is better defined, with several spokes visible, as it embraces her in its sunny warmth. She faces into the bright light, which illuminates her ruddy complexion as well as the pale and delicate flesh of her chest. The painting is a portrait of the granddaughter of friends and is more concrete than Red Umbrella, in which the upper expanse of the umbrella is largely suggested. Red Umbrella has a stronger narrative: it is clearly raining, and Lilly turns her face forward, wistfully engaging the viewer, as if saddened by the inclement weather. In addition, she is closer to the picture plane, and the crisp handling of her face stands in contrast to the abstracted background.

Color is key in both of these paintings, as it is in almost all instances. Whyte noted in Painting Portraits and Figures in Watercolor: “Color helps to create the illusion of form and the space around form. It also has the ability to shape our mood and influence our senses. The feeling that we get when we look at a portrait made with cool neutrals can be very different than when we view a portrait comprising oranges and yellows. One painting may signify a person with a somber or serene temperament, while another color palette may suggest a robust, vibrant personality.”

Sneaker and Acorn are very different from the umbrella paintings; the models are older, less automatically appealing, and the colors have shifted to deeper earth tones. Moodiness pervades both watercolors, derived in large part from the setting, and both are reminiscent of the art of Andrew Wyeth, often criticized for his somber palette. Whyte first encountered Wyeth's work in high school through reproductions in a monograph. Later, while in art school, she saw actual paintings by him at the Brandywine River Museum. But it was not until she saw his paintings at the Greenville County Museum of Art in the late 1990s that she “understood how dark they get and how much more powerful you can get things with cool light and warm shadow.” The historic and typical application of the medium is transparent and light-filled, as one finds in most watercolors by Homer and Sargent, the first painters to elevate the medium to a level equivalent to oils and pastels. Although Wyeth did use black from time to time, more often he achieved dark tonalities through the mixture of such colors as green and burnt sienna. “Cool light and warm shadow” is a hallmark of Whyte's technique, one she tries to share with her students.

John Singer Sargent, 1856–1925
Simplon Pass: Reading, 1911
Transparent and opaque watercolor over graphite, with wax resist, 20 × 14 inches
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Hayden Collection, Charles Henry Hayden Fund, 12.214
Photograph © 2013 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Yellow Umbrella, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 14 × 12 inches
Private collection

Red Umbrella, 2005
Watercolor on paper, 14 ½ × 14 ½ inches
Private collection

Close-up of Red Umbrella

Sneaker and Acorn resemble Wyeth's work in other ways, namely the depiction of African Americans, the generalization of the backgrounds, and figure placement. Just as Whyte found her models in her adopted community along Bohicket Road, so Wyeth had turned to his neighbors. Many were descendants of slaves who settled in Chadds Ford, which had been a stop on the Underground Railroad. In his numerous depictions of his black neighbors, Wyeth documented a community that was fast disappearing, just as Whyte recorded the Gullah residents of Johns Island. Wyeth most often turned to older men who served as surrogates for his deceased father, the painter N. C. Wyeth. On the other hand, Whyte's models are usually women: the elders at the Hebron Center who embraced her so warmly, younger women such as Tesha, and girls. Most important, Alfreda and her circle were models for Whyte's paintings as well as role models for life, love, and loss.

Sneaker is exceptional in Whyte's oeuvre as it depicts a teenaged boy. He stands against a telephone pole, a light shape that is mirrored in his white T-shirt; both serve to alleviate the overall darkness of the painting. He looks off to the right somewhat suspiciously or apprehensively, as the eponymous shoe dangles from a rope. The imagery of the pole, rope, and positioning of the sneaker suggest lynching, the horrific practice of executing black people and their white supporters, which Alfreda had alluded to during the visit to her childhood home. Only afterward did the artist learn that a hanging sneaker signals a place to buy drugs. The device of items hanging from a line recurs in Socks, but the model here is joyous and sweet.

The mood of Acorn is harder to assess. It is enhanced by the large expanse of charred wood—the result of a lightning strike—that looms above the young girl. She is simultaneously coy and shy, an indication of her preteen status. Her facial expression seems flirtatious, but the positioning of her left arm over her breast suggests that she is uncertain about her budding sexuality. The same young girl, again wearing jeans and a striped shirt, reappears in Dog House, another essay in adolescent moodiness with greater narrative potential. Here, at least, she has company, although the dog provides her with little solace and companionship. Both, it seems, contemplate their literal and figurative positions on/in the doghouse.

Sneaker, 2005
Watercolor on paper, 28 × 21 inches
Private collection

Acorn, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 37 ½ × 29 inches
Private collection

Socks, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 17 × 18 inches
Private collection

The models in Acorn and Sneaker are specifically that; they are posing for the artist, who regularly compensates them. They are inactive, not performing any duty or task, or playing a game. As such they represent a transition away from the narrative early work—depictions of Amish farmers in the town square, young people skating or flying a kite—and from the industrious women at the Hebron Center. Similarly Leaning Tree and Perch—a pair of interdependent watercolors set in the large live oak tree in the artist's backyard—are about preteen Diamond as a model.

“I find teenagers fascinating,” Whyte says. “Adolescence, that wonderful age between being a child and being an adult, is a metamorphosis that attracts me. I love to paint adolescents when they're being natural in their own settings.” Reminiscent of her earlier series of months, the two paintings illustrate distinct seasons. While their component parts are very alike, ultimately they complement each other: Perch is autumnal and cool in color while Leaning Tree is springlike and radiant. When Diamond started her modeling session, she was initially chilly, so Whyte gave her one of her own hats and an old jacket belonging to her husband. Eventually Diamond settled down and relaxed in an environment that was only partially familiar to her. She appears resigned, if not slightly bored, an indication that she might rather be climbing the tree than “perching” in it. Whyte may also be referencing her own childhood, “I was a tomboy, perfectly confident. I had two older brothers, so I had to keep up. They got to go camping with the Boy Scouts. I was a girl, I felt left out.”

Dog House, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 28 × 35 ½ inches
Private collection

Leaning Tree, 2012
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 40 ¼ inches
Private collection

Close-up of Leaning Tree

Perch, 2012
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 39 ½ inches
Private collection

The main differences between Perch and Leaning Tree are the position of the girl in the tree, the angle of the tree, the props, and the quality of the light. In Leaning Tree, Diamond is stretched out, at ease, her body conforming to the tree. She wears a slightly dreamy expression. The tree parallels the picture plane, and its dark bark serves as a strong contrast to her clothing and the quilt draped around her. Warm light suffuses the scene, highlighting the bright bow in her hair, the colorful fabric squares, and her Day-Glo sneakers. The connection between quilt and shoes is critical, as the artist has explained: “Using an old-fashioned object like a quilt in a painting can be risky, because it can make the image feel overly sentimental. By giving the figure a nonconventional diagonal pose, and by having the young girl wear contemporary shoes, I was able to keep the image fresh.” Whyte's workshops and her instructional books make clear the importance of light and color for creating mood and defining objects, but, she also has stated, “Painting is so much more than learning how to paint a detailed eye or mix a specific color, since technique and expression are two different things. While technique is necessary for communication, it is only a means and not the end. Truly learning how to paint becomes, in large part, a matter of learning how to see. We must become masters at observing and feeling the world around us before we can begin to express it on an easel. Also, we must know ourselves. You have to know how you feel about something to express it.”

Whyte frequently paints more than one version of a theme; she refers in her defense to Claude Monet and his haystacks and Jasper Johns and his flags. She agrees with the latter, who often speaks of “using up” an image and follows his famous dictum: “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.” In the same vein Whyte proclaims, “I haven't gotten enough; I want to explore the idea more. I ventured into new ground and I had to go further.” Sometimes Whyte works from memory, other times from the numerous sketches and photographs she compiles in preparation. She is not bashful about admitting she utilizes photographs as a tool in her work, “but with caution. I use photographs as reference, knowing the great limitations they impose on both the visual and emotional aspect of painting. Visually, photographs are limiting because the camera cannot see into shadow as well as our eyes can…. Overall, the camera cannot register as many colors as we can…. Most important, the camera records without emotion. Everything is put in and nothing is left out.” Frequently Whyte simply invents, as she did with the graffiti behind Lilly in Artist. The marks are bold and geometric, reminiscent of patterns found on ancient pottery.

Crows, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 40 ½ × 21 ¼ inches
Private collection

Tesha Marsland has been Whyte's model for well over two decades. She met the artist after winning an art contest for which the prize was a workshop with Mary. Tesha is Whyte's costar on the DVD Watercolor Portraits of the South, which is also dedicated to her. She is the focus of many paintings, willingly posing outdoors with horses or chickens and appearing very much at home in her surroundings. Significantly, her name means “late summer” in Greek, which suits Whyte's interest in seasonal changes. Tesha, a native of Johns Island, works at Rosebank Farms—the last vestige of a fading agrarian lifestyle endangered by the development of upscale properties at Kiawah and Seabrook. Three paintings of Tesha are reproduced in Alfreda's World, and they convey a more passive and contemplative mood than those of her senior counterparts who actively continue their traditional chores. In Wisteria, Tesha leans against an ancient vine-covered oak tree, mirroring its slight tilt to the left with her body. Her gaze in the other direction serves as a counterpoint. The floral patterns and the faded blue of her dress reference the wisteria blossoms and branches that hang from the tree and project above her head. Tesha seems at ease, the personification of a modern dryad, perhaps reflecting on the significance of her third pregnancy. Even more dryadic is her portrayal in Raccoon, in which she is encircled within the hollow of a live oak tree—an indigenous specimen associated with the coastal South.

On Johns Island the trees are prolific, and, according to the artist, “each tree has a uniquely different character and can be the inspiration for a painting.” In Raccoon, Tesha and the tree incline in the same direction, and her lustrous skin tones relate to the coloration of the bark around her. The title, however, associates the image with the breed known for intelligence and caginess. A raccoon finds shelter in a tree, has distinctive hands/paws, and is marked by a white shape setting off its face. Like Tesha and the live oak, the raccoon is a survivor in an increasingly materialistic world.

Artist, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 36 × 48 inches
Collection of the Gibbes Museum of Art

Wisteria, 2002
Watercolor on paper, 40 × 28 inches
Private collection

Raccoon, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 41 × 29 inches
Private collection

The collaboration between artist and model is remarkable; in fact Tesha often suggests a specific pose or mood. In Wading, for instance, she seems very natural as she holds the hand of her one-year-old, Kylia. The mother's posture is erect, her gaze watchful, while her daughter is totally absorbed in the bug she holds. Tesha's sarong—actually a bedspread from the artist's art school days—is a colorful array of patterns, and she wears it much like a fashion model. By avoiding contemporary clothing, the image attains a certain timelessness, and the wrap references Tesha's African roots. In addition, its tonalities are similar to the marsh grasses and water that surround her. In speaking of her role, Tesha has maintained that patience is the hallmark of a successful model. Very proud of her work and wanting to be “perfect,” she has admitted that her secret to holding a pose is to mull over the many tasks that await her when the session is finished.

In other paintings, the artist's conception is central, as in Coreopsis, a quasi-romantic portrayal with artistic precedents in the work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and John Singer Sargent. The latter is a particular favorite of Whyte's, and she claims to have learned more from her examination of his watercolors than from her single watercolor class in art school. What she especially appreciates in his paintings is his handling of edges—how they blend seamlessly one into another—as well as his ability to leave the paper bare to express white and juxtapose it with passages of reflective color.

Spirit, 2000
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 23 inches
Private collection

In Simplon Pass: Reading (page 134), the dresses echo the bright turquoise and lavender of the ladies’ parasols, and, in a similar fashion, Tesha's checkered sheet picks up the colors of the yellow flowers. In her teaching Whyte stresses timing, and she habitually advocates “getting in and out quickly,” like Sargent, who “worked quite rapidly on damp paper, often with a limited palette, spreading the washes to the edges and then adding a few final highlights and accents in gouache.” Other paintings of Tesha conjure art historical prototypes, such as Daydream, where the model's curious pose emulates the personifications of the continents in Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's ceiling mural in Würzburg. The figures are seen from below and are appropriately foreshortened. Like them Tesha appears to be dreaming in an almost sibyl-like manner anticipating the future.

Wading, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 47 5/8 × 39 3/8 inches
Private collection

Coreopsis, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 28 × 21 inches
Private collection

Daydream, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 27 × 20 inches
Private collection

Tending, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 19 × 24 ½ inches
Private collection

During twenty years as Whyte's model, Tesha has quite naturally changed. In Spirit (page 154), Whyte's first painting of her model, the hair is short and stubbly. Later, as Tesha has transitioned from a teenager to a mother of three, her hair is longer and done up in elaborate braids. The artist too has evolved in both technique and subject matter. Her major paintings have gotten larger, and they are more imposing. The book Down Bohicket Road is a testament to this shift and is seen by the artist as an elaboration of the more modest Alfreda's World, published almost a decade earlier. For both, Whyte's motivation was preservation; she set out to document visually a way of life that was being threatened by convenience stores and subdivisions. After Alfreda passed away, Whyte feared that the sustainability of the Hebron Center and the inspiration for her paintings would be lost. The charismatic woman who had once led the group and had called Whyte “my vanilla sister” was gone, and with her passing a profound friendship ended.

Close-up of Coop

Disciple, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 21 ¾ × 19 ¼ inches
Private collection

With other older members “going home” and Johns Island rapidly becoming a different place, Whyte wondered if there was anything meaningful left to paint. The artist's sagging spirits were lifted only when her husband advised her, “Paint the new Johns Island.” And this is the role that Tesha has adeptly fulfilled; in more recent paintings she wears jeans, tank tops, and stylish jewelry.

The idea that a vernacular culture was threatened, that Gullah customs and living close to the land would give way to homogenization and modernization, parallels another major body of work, Working South.

The title, like those of many of her paintings, has a double meaning. It references the jobs people in the region do, but the phrase also signifies Whyte's personal journey from the North to the South. Working South chronicles vanishing industries across the South—those endangered by changing labor practices, overseas competition, and obsolescence. In contrast to her numerous depictions of Johns Island, which were near to home and of people she came to know over a period of years, the paintings in Working South evolved from extensive travels and serendipitous and short-lived encounters with workers in various walks of life. They are more everyday and universal than the Gullah community, and consequently the series is more diverse, less cohesive, and more ambitious than her previous work.

The genesis of the project occurred during a portrait commission in Greenville, South Carolina, whose famed textile industry had dramatically declined. The morning she met with her sitter, the local newspaper posted a headline about yet another mill closing. Whyte felt the urge to embark on a new concept. “These paintings are not meant to be biographies or a historic dissertation on industry in the South. I set out to show the hope, vulnerability, frailty, and determination of our unseen neighbors at work.”

Once again Whyte's sitters were individuals who existed “under the radar,” and her goal was to document them before it was too late. “In a country that is focused on celebrities, wealth, and the ‘American Idol,’ these works offer a glimpse into the world of ordinary people who might otherwise be considered invisible to much of society.” She regrets that she missed a few opportunities to capture other disappearing occupations, such as a bowling alley pinsetter, washroom attendant, and cobbler. Initially Whyte thought her emphasis would be on textile workers, and that is where she began. In the end, however, only six of the thirty paintings deal with the subject, unless one also includes Lovers (page 33), which depicts an older woman from Berea, Kentucky, working on a quilt, an image linked to the quilt makers at the Hebron Center.

Cotton Man, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 40 ½ × 27 ½ inches
Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art

Sentinel, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 34 ½ inches
Private collection

By a Thread, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 27 ¾ × 39 ¾ inches
Private collection

The first of the paintings coincided with the beginnings of the Great Recession of 2008, and over the next three and a half years the concept of an outmoded, outsourced, and downsized labor force was a constant theme in the media. As a result the paintings have added resonance. Whyte wrangled access to operating mills, not so easy as mill owners were somewhat suspicious of her intentions. Despite earplugs she found the noise inside overwhelming, a phenomenon she describes as “a tornado in a soup can.” She soon discovered that the place to talk with employees was the canteen; there she learned that many suffered from incipient deafness but were following the only way of life they had ever known. Several were second- and third-generation workers. By a Thread, the depiction of a mill worker from Easley, South Carolina, is a potent image, enhanced by an evocative title, which serves as a metaphor for the entire industry. The model measures out a thin white thread, her outstretched arms unconsciously emulating the crucifixion. Her central position, the strong horizontals and verticals, the contrasting darks and lights, and proximity to the picture plane recall Renaissance and Baroque altarpieces by Andrea Mantegna and Caravaggio. The carefully detailed work paraphernalia—the safety glasses, earplugs, gloves, apron, and the spools behind her—transform her into a modern-day martyr.

In a mill in Gaffney, South Carolina, Whyte met up with another woman, this time an African American. For generations mills were the domains of white workers, many descendants of Scots-Irish settlers who moved from impoverished Appalachian conditions to segregated mill villages complete with company stores, cookie-cutter houses, and baseball teams made famous by such figures as Shoeless Joe Jackson. African Americans, of course, cultivated cotton for centuries, and artists frequently portrayed them as field hands both before and after the Civil War. Perhaps one of the most moving images of all time is Winslow Homer's 1878 canvas The Cotton Pickers. Two young women dominate the foreground against a vast sea of cotton emblematic of their burdensome routine. The one on the left is bored and listless, while the one on the right looks apprehensively into the distance. The woman in Mary Whyte's Spinner (page 36) appears similarly weary as she rests her arm on a great barrel of spun cotton, hinting at the endless task she faces. Even the clothes she wears are weighed down by fatigue. Her expression is one of quiet resignation as she gazes at the viewer—one of only a few to do so—with the slightest hint of a smile. Both Homer and Whyte have an uncanny ability to capture the soft brown flesh of their subjects as well as the fluffiness of cotton.

Another painting inspired by a Gaffney employee is the very romantic Shroud—a fantasy that is unique in the series with its symbolic connotations and reference to the shroud of Christ. Swathed in golden raiment, the figure is dissolved, except for her head and hair; in spite of this feature Gustav Klimt's famous portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer comes to mind. Unlike Klimt, who was obsessed with detail and pattern, however, Whyte conceived Shroud in terms of rhythmic swirls of fabric that verge on abstraction. She admits that she took a chance with the painting, but defends it by saying, “it may not be exactly what I saw, but was exactly what I felt.” And what she felt was the utter desperateness of knowing that an entire industry is doomed.

Fishing, oystering, and shrimping are the focus of several more of the Working South paintings. Men dominate these professions, in contrast to the textile industry, where the workers are largely women. Poignancy is rampant here as well, although the causes for the demise of these industries are different: pollution, overfishing, mechanization, and Mother Nature. The men in Trawler and Trap are ruddy, weathered, and stalwart, but their mood is very different from one another.

Winslow Homer, 1836–1910
The Cotton Pickers, 1878
Oil on canvas, 24 1/16 × 38 ⅛ inches
Acquisition made possible through Museum Trustees: Robert O. Anderson, R. Stanton Avery,
B. Gerald Cantor, Edward W. Carter, Justin Dart, Charles Ducommun, Camilla Chandler Frost,
Julian Ganz, Jr., Dr. Armand Hammer, Harry Lenart, Dr. Franklin D. Murphy, Mrs. Joan Palevsky,
Richard E. Sherwood, Maynard J. Troll, and Hal B. Wallis (M 77.68)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Digital image © 2013 Museum Associates/LACMA, licensed by Art Resource, N.Y

Shroud, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 58 × 36 ¼ inches
Private collection

Trawler, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 37 × 28 ¾ inches
Private collection

Trap, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 21 ¾ × 19 ¼ inches
Private collection

 

In the former the figure proudly smiles as he gathers his nets in his left hand. In her narrative Whyte explained how the shrimper Eddie is a survivor “He, like many before him, has endured physical trials that come with the territory: a finger severed in a winch, broken bones, and even gunshot wounds…. In spite of the injuries, Eddie still loves ‘the catch.’” And then, too, Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc along the coast near his dock in Biloxi, Mississippi. In contrast the crabber in Trap seems more fatalistic, and his setting reinforces the sense of doom. Like the subjects of many of Andrew Wyeth paintings, he faces a dark expanse emblematic of his state of mind. Whyte went out with him on his boat, and together they discovered that over one-third of his traps had been poached or vandalized. “I watched this man vacillate that day between anguish, despair, and rage.” The next time she called him he had gone out of business. Trawler and Trap have backgrounds that are not only evocative of their trades but are also virtuosic treatments of the watercolor medium. In Painting Portraits, Whyte asserted, “The background is one of the single most important elements of a composition and can make or break a painting. Hardly inessential, backgrounds are what can unify and set the tone for the rest of the painting in ways that the viewer would seldom notice but subconsciously…. Background can add narrative to a painting as well as enhance the focal point.”

With its tenebrous lighting and rich umbers, Eclipse resembles portraits by Rembrandt, who often painted moody and questioning old men. The references to the man's job are subtle, yet revealing: the sheaf of tobacco leaves in the upper left and the cigarette dangling from his mouth. In the text of Working South, Whyte described her experiences with Joe: “We stand just outside the low doorway [to the tobacco barn]. The building is patched in a few places with sheets of tin, reflecting the clear afternoon light. We talk about the future of tobacco farming—if it has a future. The light makes stripes in shadow across Joe's body, and his face, as if he is eclipsed, somehow divided in half between the past and the future.” Joe's frame of mind as depicted by Whyte is quite different from the heroic disposition of tobacco farmers found in paintings by Thomas Hart Benton. Completed in the early 1940s, Benton's bold canvases were designed as advertisements for R. J. Reynolds's American Tobacco Company; ironically, the paintings were auctioned off when the company faltered under the press of lawsuits.

Eclipse, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 22 ¼ × 30 ¾ inches
Private collection

Close-up of Eclipse

Benton is categorized as an American Regionalist, in part because of his two series of murals, America Today and the Arts of Life in America, which represent the various regions of the country and the activities typically associated with them. In preparation for these paintings Benton traveled extensively and filled sketchbooks with drawings and watercolors of field hands, dockworkers, and cowboys. In his autobiography he recounted how “I traveled without interests beyond those of getting material for my pictures. I didn't give a damn what people thought, how they ate their eggs or approached their females, how they voted, or what devious business they were involved in. I took them as they came and got along with them as best I could.” In similar fashion Whyte drove from Charleston to Florida to Kentucky in pursuit of subject matter, and like Benton she recorded what she saw in her notebooks, sketchpads, and photographs. Never judgmental, Whyte, unlike Benton, cares for the people whom she paints. With her Gullah paintings and Working South, Whyte is a modern-day regionalist, and like Benton she enjoys the journey. She loves exploring, especially by car, and recalls that as a child, when her father inquired, “Anybody want to go for a ride?,” she would jump at every opportunity.

Capturing one subject in particular required considerable driving and a good deal of sleuthing. Whyte had been told about a band that played at funerals somewhere in southern Florida. She wanted to include something from that state, but she was challenged because of its resort orientation. She made numerous calls in the Miami area and was about to give up when she decided to look in the yellow pages for funeral homes affiliated with African American churches. She got lucky and located a military band, which had its origins in the 1920s; they had played for veterans of World War I. Hoping to see them in action, Whyte inquired if there was an impending funeral. Learning there was nothing scheduled, she hired these elderly musicians to perform for her. This allowed her to sketch and photograph them freely as they marched and played their instruments among the tombstones. Pilgrimage is one of only two multifigure paintings in the series, and it took her the longest to complete.

Whyte admits she took artistic license; normally the band members walk two by two, but she singled out each individual, showcasing him and his instrument. The dark trunk and gracious limbs of the banyan tree are a foil for their white shirts and the ghostly grave markers. Slightly stooped with age, the men march off into an uncertain and hazy future.

Drummer, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 14 × 11 inches
Private collection

Pilgrimage, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 39 × 48 inches
Private collection

Close-up of Pilgrimage

Pit Man, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 8 ¼ × 9 ½ inches
Private collection

 

Of the thirty paintings in Working South, more are of men than women, more of white people than black, and more of older citizens than middle-aged. Most of the models wear work clothes—overalls and aprons proliferate. Appropriately, one of the more elegantly attired individuals is the Atlanta milliner in New Year. Surrounded by the beautiful bonnets she has crafted, she is dressed in a handsome dark-blue knit outfit that is embellished with shiny buttons, a brass-colored belt, and jewelry. The most fascinating detail, however, is the delicate little finger of her left hand, which is silhouetted against the white hat she sews. Her wistful and faraway expression evokes several possible narratives. The artist explains, “The title New Year is based on the notion of hope. The economic recession was weighing heavy on everyone that December [2009]. The splash of white spring hats next to the milliner in her somber wintry attire was a sign of the hope that automatically comes with a new year.”

The choice of a milliner came naturally to Whyte who has repeatedly used hats in her paintings, especially in her self-portraits and her likenesses of Alfreda and Georgeanna. In each instance, the hats help to determine the mood, ranging from frivolous to dignified. For artistic precedents, New Year harkens back to Edgar Degas's The Millinery Shop. The two paintings share asymmetrical compositions enlivened by the repeated spherical shapes of the hats. Whyte's version, however, is more straightforward in its handling of perspective and more poignant than Degas's rather impersonal figure.

The questioning uncertainty of the milliner recurs on the face of the drive-in operator in Night Light. Silhouetted against a brightly lit marquee, Gary Douglas stands firmly with his bulky arms crossed over his chest. According to Martha Teichner, who featured Whyte and Douglas on a CBS Sunday Morning program, he and his theater are relics of the past: “His is the only movie theater for miles around Lewisburg, Tennessee, an honest-to-goodness last picture show not that much different from the way it was in the 1940s.” Undermined first by the advent of air conditioning and later by Netflix, drive-in theaters are now a rarity. Although he is placed off-center, Douglas is the focal point of the painting with the observer's gaze only slightly distracted by the bold plastic letters of the sign. Whyte has purposely shown partial words, inviting the viewer to puzzle out the title of the popular movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Complementing the painting is Smith Coleman's frame with corners defined by elliptical O's and jumbled letters randomly enlivening the surface.

New Year, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 22 ½ × 30 ¼ inches
Private collection

Veil, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 24 ½ × 19 ¼ inches
Private collection

Night Light, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 28 ½ inches
Private collection

Sports Page, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 29 ¾ × 22 ¾ inches
Private collection

 

The youngest protagonist in the series, shown in Sports Page, is a fifteen-year old newspaper carrier. Like most of the people in Working South, the youth is part of a long tradition. As Whyte described,

Kelly Hendon was born into the business—the newspaper had been in his family for thirty-nine years. He has been delivering the Union City Messenger since he was six, at first helping his older brother, who is now in college. Kelly's father delivered the paper on a bicycle when he was a teenager…. “It's in my blood,” he said. “At first I did it for the money, but now I do it to help the family.” There are a lot of people counting on him here; even his grandmother still keeps the books in the office. This is a business that defined the family, as well as the community. And one that requires more dedication than ever, to keep it alive in this age of Internet news and color television.

Intently reading behind stacks of newspapers, Kelly is as contemplative as the young woman in Wyeth's The Liberal (page 123). Positioned against a murky dark background, he is bathed in a warm light, while the blues of his striped shirt and jeans are reiterated in the papers before him.

Close-up of Fifteen-Minute Break

 

Unlike most of the other sitters whose futures are at risk, Kelly's circumstances are more hopeful and contrast the rather dismal demeanor of another young figure: the man in the foreground of Fifteen-Minute Break (page 7). With his soot-covered face and clothes, he steps forward into the light and leans against a wall. Along with his two companions who lurk in the shadows, he is taking a break from the onerous task of cleaning industrial machinery. This occupation was not one that Whyte sought, but rather one that presented itself serendipitously when she encountered the young men in a diner in Bishopville, South Carolina. “I kept working my way south until I found what I was looking for, or until it found me. Any preconception I had of the people in a certain industry would almost always prove to be wrong. I was continually astonished by those I met, not only by their differences but by the things we had in common.” Throughout the series Whyte managed to endow each of her subjects with individuality, humanity, and dignity, despite their differing circumstances.

Tips, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 22 ½ × 30 ¾ inches
Private collection

 

The fifty paintings—thirty major watercolors and twenty sketches—that make up the exhibition Working South are all in frames specifically designed and crafted by Smith Coleman. Over and over again, one sees the connection between image and molding; Pearl has a row of individually carved spheres, Spinner (page 36) a wave design emulating the strands of cotton, and Trawler (page 168) a net.

Adhering to museum standards for their materials, both Whyte and Coleman are concerned with the aesthetic and longevity of their products. While Whyte is working on a painting no one is allowed in her studio, even Coleman, although she did allow a film crew in for her video and her interview with CBS—very special exceptions. When a painting is finished, Whyte will announce: “We're having an Art Show,” which means Coleman can finally see the completed work. Immediately he begins to conceive his design. “I look over a painting and pick out visual themes. I'm fascinated by textures such as bark or details like jewelry or tattoos.” Meticulous and creative, Coleman believes “There's a fine art to enhancing paintings. The frames should be an extension of the art. I don't make the same frame over and over again.” Each frame usually takes him about three weeks, which includes sketches, mock-ups of moldings, sizing and sanding the wood, carving, and gilding. He seeks Whyte's approval and input, and in only one instance did she demur: “I don't think it works.” That was the frame for Absolution (page 37)—Coleman too obviously had extrapolated a design based on the sitter's tattoos.

Detail of Pearl frame

Pearl, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 22 ½ × 30 ¼ images
Private collection

 

Coleman, who is a member of the Society of Gilders, became a custom frame maker somewhat by accident, as he has explained: “When I had an art gallery in Philadelphia, one of my assistants dropped a client's frame…a Louis XVI. It wasn't severely damaged, but damaged enough that I had to fix it. So I did some research and then took a beginner's class in water gilding so I could repair the frame. That's when I realized I had another interest besides the gallery.”

In addition to framing Whyte's paintings, Coleman restores and gilds antique frames, mirrors, and furniture, and he also teaches workshops. His workspace is on the second floor of his downtown Charleston gallery, Coleman Fine Art. The brick structure at 79 Church Street dates to the late seventeenth century, and it is associated with two Charleston Renaissance artists: Anna Heyward Taylor and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner. Verner bought the house next door at 38 Tradd Street in 1938; her daughter purchased the gallery's building in 1972 and joined the two structures. Thirteen years later Betty Verner Hamilton opened a museum and sales room dedicated to her mother. Coleman acquired 79 Church Street in 2002 and has restored the garden in back, which has become a quiet resting place for the numerous tourists who visit the gallery. A focal point of this lushly landscaped space is Whyte's first and only sculpture, a statue of her young model Lilly. Whyte undertook the statue when she could not paint because she had broken her wrist; her doctor suggested that working in clay would be good therapy. The bronze cast from her model is a charming accent to the intimate garden, especially when the camellias are in bloom.

Smith Coleman at work
Photograph: Coleman Fine Art

Lilly, bronze statue by Mary Whyte
in the garden at 79 Church Street
Photograph: Coleman Fine Art

Birthday, 2007
Watercolor on paper, 40 ½ × 28 ½ inches
Private collection

 

Charleston, once acclaimed “The Queen of the South,” is proud of its long history. It has a long tradition of artistic patronage and a preference for portraits, beginning with the small pastels Henrietta Johnston did in the opening decades of the eighteenth century. Portraiture is a venerable art form that preserves and commemorates a person's looks and accomplishments or retains the likeness of a child.

Breezing By, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 11 × 9 inches
Private collection

 

Over her career Whyte has undertaken more than two hundred portraits; early on they were a major source of income. As she has achieved success and recognition for her figurative work, she feels less compelled to paint portraits, enjoying the freedom to pursue her own ideas. Because a portraitist has to please the sitter, and sometimes family members or a committee, some artists find rendering likenesses rather restrictive. Whyte has insisted, however, that “I've always looked at painting people's portraits not as work for hire but as an honorable and interesting artistic challenge. Every portrait brings a new set of considerations and parameters. And every portrait is an opportunity for a unique way of expression. Commissioned portraits can expand your vision of the world and take you to parts of your town or country that you may never otherwise get to see. More important, the time spent getting to know another person will sometimes bear fruit in a meaningful relationship.”

Ironman portrays the Charleston blacksmith Philip Simmons and relates to both the Johns Island paintings and those in Working South. Simmons was born on Daniel Island and spent his early years in circumstances not unlike his contemporaries in Alfreda's World. At age eight, however, he moved into Charleston. Five years later he left school to apprentice with a blacksmith who was a former slave. Over a long and prolific career, Simmons crafted more than five hundred grills, gates, and fences, which grace the historic architecture of Charleston. In 1982 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a National Heritage Fellowship. During his acceptance speech, which followed a performance by a blues group, Simmons remarked, “My instrument is an anvil. I guess some of you have heard me play…a tune on the anvil, the old blacksmith tune…. I'm proud of that anvil, really proud…. That anvil fed me when I was hungry and that anvil clothed me when I was naked. That anvil put shoes on my feet.” The inspiration to do a portrait of Simmons came to Whyte during a tour of Charleston conducted by Alphonso Brown, author of A Gullah Guide to Charleston: Walking through Black History. At Simmons's workshop she looked around and said to herself, “Someone should paint this guy…. Maybe I should paint him.” She followed up and found him to be “a neat old guy, with an office filled with stuff.”

In the portrait, the eighty-eight-year-old blacksmith stands at his workbench and engages the viewer with a congenial smile. As in her paintings of Johns Island residents, Whyte has carefully selected some props that evoke Simmons's personality. Before him are nuts, bolts, and curling metal pieces that are his stock in trade; his strong right hand rests on his hammer. On the wall to the left are three less well-defined objects that balance the sitter and the oval, fishlike form that mirrors the shape of his head. Despite her initial impression of an “office filled with stuff,” Whyte provides very little visual information about the setting, emphasizing instead cool darks and lights that contrast with the brilliant ultramarine of his work clothes. She explained in Painting Portraits and Figures in Watercolor: “Backgrounds can be made to look near or far, colorful, neutral, empty, or filled with a million details. Backgrounds can in fact be anything, as long as they enhance the focal area. The job of the background is to complement the rest of the painting and help drive home the emotional message without being distracting to the central idea of the image.”

Ironman, 2000
Watercolor on paper, 39 × 28 inches
Collection of the Gibbes Museum of Art

Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., 2006
Oil on canvas, 37 × 27 inches
Collection of the City of Charleston, S.C.

 

A more formal undertaking and one with a rich backdrop is the portrait of Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., destined for the historic council chamber of Charleston City Hall. Since the 1790s the city fathers have commissioned highly regarded artists to do portraits of distinguished statesmen. On display against the honey-colored wood paneling are monumental canvases of George Washington by John Trumbull, James Monroe by Samuel F. B. Morse, and John C. Calhoun by George P. A. Healy. Over the years, smaller bust-length portraits of local politicians have been added to the collection. Mayor Riley was first elected in 1975 and has overseen a vibrant period of growth that has brought Charleston national recognition for its revitalization, racial harmony, and tourist and cultural amenities, especially Spoleto Festival USA.

Riley's portrait is exceptional in several respects: it has a fully developed scenic backdrop unlike the others in the chamber, has a light palette, and is presented in a beautifully handcrafted frame. Whyte positioned the mayor against a view of the city that he has done so much to shape, detailing the new bridge across the Cooper River, historic St. Philip's Church, and the rooftops and trees of the downtown area. Between the balusters is a glimpse of City Hall. In contrast to the portrait of Simmons, there is lots of color and visual detail here, a tribute to the very popular mayor. For years his supporters had urged him to have his portrait done; after thirty-two years at the helm, he thought it was about time, as he did not want to be portrayed as a wizened old man. It was Whyte's idea to pose Riley overlooking the city—a prospect very few Charlestonians ever see. After the artist made the necessary arrangements, they went together and climbed the tower of St. Michael's Church, where she took numerous photographs to be used as reference material. They returned to his office, where she made additional sketches while he worked. He made one request of Whyte: to exclude the Dockside Apartments, one of the tallest buildings in the city, as he is quite proud of the height ordinance he helped to institute. Later, when the portrait was unveiled in the council chamber, Riley looked around and realized he was practically the only sitter with a smile on his face. He admits that his job has “been a lot of hard work, but also joyful.” His smiling face humanizes him in the midst of earlier and more dour politicians and presents him as an enthusiastic ambassador for the city he loves.

Whyte's portrait of Dr. Layton McCurdy offered similar challenges, as it too had to fit in with a larger group of formal portraits, this time at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Like the portrait of the mayor, it is oil on canvas. The occasion for the portrait was McCurdy's 2001 retirement from the deanship of the college of medicine, a position he had held for eleven years. After seeing his office and viewing the other portraits in the waiting area, Whyte decided she wanted to paint him more informally and chose his library at home. The light was better there and the setting allowed for a more personal interpretation, in contrast to what he calls the “very sober, banker-type” portrayals of his predecessors.

Although still wearing his white lab coat, McCurdy appears relaxed as he tilts back in his chair and gazes smilingly at the observer. A psychiatrist by training, McCurdy excels at putting people at ease, and Whyte has ably conveyed this trait. The warm light entering from above envelops the left side of his face and shoulder and contrasts the darker realms of the mahogany bookshelves. These are filled with an array of large books, several tilting casually. Two are recognizable and are emblematic of both the artist and the sitter; on the yellow spine of one, Rembrandt is clearly legible—a direct reference to the great portraitist—and, to the left, H. W. Janson's History of Art serves to acknowledge the full scope of the physician's interests. The Imari bowl and other small objects on the shelves behind McCurdy further reference his predilections. The painting of McCurdy is a testament to Whyte's skills with oil, and she effectively used impasto to highlight individual areas. Certain flourishes such as the flowers on the table and his rumpled lab coat are reminiscent of her talent with watercolor, but the overall solidity of the image is in keeping with the medium and the subject.

Dr. Layton McCurdy, 1999
Oil on canvas, 30 × 40 inches
Collection of the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, S.C.

Close-up of Dr. Layton McCurdy

 

Backgrounds play an important role in defining the personalities of Simmons, Riley, and McCurdy. In Bettina M. Whyte the scene provides a context for a woman who clearly enjoys the outdoors. The image exudes graciousness and comfort and belies the fact that the subject is a driven businesswoman who specializes in bankruptcies. The artist knows her subject well: Bettina was at one time married to Whyte's older brother. The landscape that surrounds Bettina exemplifies Whyte's facility for leaving portions of the paper untouched to create highlights.

The wet-into-wet technique—especially evident in the upper ranges of the composition—recalls Alice Ravenel Huger Smith's earlier poetic visions of the Carolina lowcountry. Not unlike Whyte, Smith mastered watercolor largely on her own and felt that its transparent capabilities matched her subject matter.

Smith's protégé Elizabeth O'Neill Verner saw this and wrote the following tribute: “She mastered the technique of watercolor as best suited for depicting the country she loved and because she was self-taught and a perfectionist, she apparently uses that medium effortlessly—the paint flows, glides, dances or is suddenly checked as she desires. She is in complete control. What she is painting is all that matters—how she will paint it is apparently no problem to her at all. And so, because she loves her lowcountry, she has made it hers forever.”

Another talent that Smith and Whyte share is their ability to render that great natural oddity of the South—Spanish moss. Its neutral gray color and amorphous shape make it particularly tricky, in concert with painting wet-into-wet. Whyte proclaimed,

Bettina M. Whyte, 2005
Watercolor on paper, 28 × 21 ½ inches
Private collection

Painting wet-into-wet is the most dramatic and challenging of the basic watercolor techniques. This wonderful technique is impressive because the colors mix themselves on the paper, giving more lively and luminous results. With the wet-into-wet technique, the paint will sometimes seem to be more in control of your work than you are—however, the results will be unlike any you could possibly contrive yourself. With experience you will be able to anticipate pretty much how your wet-into-wet washes will look when they are dry, yet there will always be surprises along the way. These unexpected occurrences are what make watercolor the unique and delightful medium that it is.

Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, 1876–1958
The Pineland, from A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties, circa 1935
Watercolor on paper, 21 ½ × 16 inches
© Image Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association 1937.009.007

Winter Field, 2009
Watercolor on paper,
14 ⅛ × 11 ¾ inches Private collection

Blue Umbrella, 2006
Watercolor on paper, 26 × 20 inches
Private collection

Both Whyte and Smith have given over countless hours sketching their environments and both have created paintings from these visual memoranda. Smith did not paint en plein air but worked in her studio, using notebooks and her memory. Similarly, Whyte paints scenes, faces, and circumstances from the past; she successfully evokes what she felt when she first experienced them.

Although not portraits per se, Hurricane Warning and Passages are both strong characterizations of older women, with similar surroundings but very different moods. In the former, a frowning African American looks askance at the observer. Her weathered and wrinkled face and snow-white unruly hair suggest that she has seen a life filled with anxiety and deprivation. She has probably survived more than one hurricane, and the storm clouds reflected in the windowpanes above her suggest she is about to experience another.

Summertime, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 18 ½ × 24 inches
Private collection

Hurricane Warning, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 16 × ¼ 9 ¼ inches
Private collection

Passages, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 16 ½ × 25 inches
Private collection

 

Also hinting at turbulent weather, Passages is exceptional for its illusion of blowing wind, an artistic device associated with Homer in his many depictions of women standing along coastlines facing unknown realities. The motif recurs in the aptly titled Fresh Air (page 80), where a young girl turns into the wind, allowing her skirts and hat ribbons to billow behind her. In Passages, Whyte has placed her sitter's profile against the darkness of a windowpane, her leathery skin mirrored by the texture of the wooden surfaces. Her vertical positioning is reinforced by the window, balancing the horizontality of the clapboards. Whyte has added the telling details of her hairpin and, almost at the midpoint, a piece of hardware for securing a long-lost shutter, one perhaps blown away by another storm. The title is unusually evocative—hinting at the passage of time that impacts both the sitter and her environment. Whatever the future may bring, she will face it in stalwart fashion.

A blowing scarf is an idea Whyte has used in other instances, including her self-portrait, Mid-Breeze. Very different in concept from Passages and more akin to Fresh Air, the watercolor shows a self-confident woman looking directly at the observer. The strong dark diagonal of her torso is visually counterweighted by the hat and the part of the scarf that flows upward.

In Down Bohicket Road, Whyte described the history of her hat:

Trudy, another one of the seniors [at the Hebron Center], had her own cottage business of selling gorgeous hats. One Wednesday she brought dozens of her samples to the center for the ladies to see, and she set them out on the folding tables, creating a kaleidoscope of color. The women tried on all the different hats, swishing their hips and dipping their shoulders to the encouragement and applause of the others. Every now and then, a member would duck into the bathroom to see for herself how she looked in the mirror. The room was awash in a rainbow of laughter.

“Mary,” Trudy said, walking over to stand next to me, “you need a hat.”

“Oh,…um, well,” I stammered, “I do?”

“Yes, you do,” replied Trudy, looking up at me, blinking, and appraising the width of my head. “You definitely need a hat.”

“Well, OK,” I answered. “But I have no idea what I should wear. You pick one for me.”

Trudy nodded thoughtfully and walked over to the table like she was stalking an animal. She stopped and stood almost motionless, turning her head slowly back and forth to scan the display of hats. Then she reached down with both hands and lifted up a chocolate brown wide-brimmed hat with a flounce of netting and sequins around the band. She carried it back to me as carefully as if she were handling a tray of eggs and reached up to place the hat on my head. The room went silent…then erupted into a flood of cheers.

Whyte's ability to capture the personality of her sitters is well documented by Clemson Man, an intimate likeness of Doug Hogg. The artist was introduced to this congenial and warm-hearted gentleman, his wife, Billie, and their daughter Jane when she was just starting Working South. The artist had been sketching and working on her images of textile workers in upstate South Carolina and told an acquaintance that she wanted to locate a beekeeper. This led her to a nursery in Simpsonville, where she met the Hoggs, who “are in the business of raising things: bees, collards, tomatoes, grapes, children, you name it. If it is something that is designed to get sweeter or bigger—and to make people happy—you'll find it at their house. They'll grow it, can it, cook it, bake it, and then have the entire neighborhood over to help them eat it.” With the Hoggs, Whyte found the same kind of embracing warmth that she had felt with Alfreda LaBoard.

Mid-Breeze, 2005
Watercolor on paper, 21 3/8 × 28 ½ inches
The Wright Southern Collection

Coming to Zion, 2003
Watercolor on paper, 27 × 22 inches
Private collection

 

Inspired by the Hoggs’ hospitality, Whyte not only sketched Jane Bechdolt, the model for Beekeeper's Daughter (page 4), but also learned about the family's history. Jane is a 1988 graduate of Clemson University, where she studied animal science because of her love of horses. She also enjoys going to flea markets. “I'm a tomboy at heart, but also a girly-girl,” she says, and her nicely finished nails attest to her femininity despite work in the greenhouse. Her father, Doug, had worked at a textile mill, but he was forced into retirement at age fifty-eight when the plant closed. A Clemson graduate and avid sports fan, Hogg turned his hand to “raising things.” He moved two small white frame houses that had been lived in by textile workers; one was to be the family home, the other a rental property. Whyte ended up leasing it, called it the “Bee House,” and used it as an alternate studio. When in residence, she adopted the lifestyle of a monk, working twelve-hour days like the textile workers before her, emerging only at noon to feast on one of Billie Hogg's home-cooked meals. In addition to the regimen and quiet, the Bee House was a good location from which she could travel in pursuit of other models for Working South.

While Clemson Man is the characterization of a man she came to know well over several years, the watercolor of Burton Silverman resulted from a short session on stage at a meeting of the Portrait Society of America. The membership organization is dedicated to furthering portrait and figurative art and hosts annual conferences and workshops. Whyte is on the faculty of the society, one of several women artists holding such a position and the sole watercolorist. In connection with the 2010 conference, Whyte demonstrated onstage using a dark-skinned model; when she started with a broad wash of blue she heard her audience gasp. She told them to have patience, confident that the end product would be a fitting display of her technique. After she finished with that model, she was asked to paint someone with white skin, and Silverman, a distinguished portraitist in his own right, volunteered. Known for his oil portraits of justices, trustees, and society women, Silverman recalled:

Clemson Man, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 12 ¾ × 10 ¼ inches
Private collection

Cornstalks, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 11 1/4 × 13 inches
Private collection

I am not unfamiliar with posing for other painters…, since I have exchanged sittings with colleagues painting them in turn. I was therefore intrigued to pose for Mary, curious to see how she might use watercolor in a challenging setting—demonstration paintings are often stressful, since it is performance art as much as anything else. The resultant work, accomplished as we exchanged remarks and observations about painting from life, was surprising and quite remarkable. She made daring kinds of color notations that defy the more naturalistic rendering associated with her other work, and while the resemblance was off, she managed to get some very real sense of me and whatever might be called my persona. It was a tour-de-force because the circumstances and the medium ordinarily would conspire against any success. The experience was memorable.

Mary Whyte Workshop, Art in the Mountains, Bend, Oregon, July 2012
Photograph: Tracy Culbertson

 

Whyte was well prepared for the demonstration because of the many workshops she has offered over the years.

Whyte usually starts her sessions with information about materials—paints, brushes, and paper—and then launches into a painting herself, either with a model or a still life. While she paints, she chatters away, easily answering questions as she proceeds. Typically her students are enthralled and admit that this is their favorite part of the workshop.

Burton, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 14 ¾ × 14 1/2 inches
Private collection

 

Her commitment to art education is manifest further in a program she established in 2007, the Mary Whyte Art Educator Award. Administered by the Gibbes Museum of Art, it recognizes a South Carolina visual art teacher, based on samples of the teacher's own work as well as that of his or her students. The 2,500-dollar award is substantial, and, as Whyte has learned, it is also “huge for the teacher, bigger than I thought, as it is such a boost to their self-esteem.”

Many of Whyte's students and admirers have found their way to the gallery at Coleman Fine Art and offered their opinions of her work in the gallery's guestbook:

Thanks for your wonderful vocation. Mary always has fascinating, living people…. They are exquisite.

Whyte's work is fabulous! I drove three hours to see her work.

I've painted over forty years, and still can't paint half as well. I need your workshop!

Your work truly captures the spirit of a people who are often overlooked and misjudged.

The gallery's director, Katie Lindler, recalls one episode that particularly struck her: a middle-aged African American woman came in, pondered Graffiti, and then started to cry. When she asked if she could take photos, which is against gallery policy, Lindler gave her a reproduction instead. The woman wrote a heartfelt thank-you letter about the experience, but never explained why she was so touched.

Often gallery visitors ask about Whyte's race, not fully comprehending how a white artist can render dark skin tones and empathize so effectively with her sitters. Renata Toney, who is an art museum employee, met Whyte at a conference in Buffalo; she wrote revealingly: “My heritage is deeply rooted in Gullah tradition, my paternal grandparents hail from south Georgia near Sapelo Island. When I first saw her work I was mesmerized, it pulled me in, I was instantly a part of the experience and personally knew each subject. Her artistry heightened my pride in being Gullah. It was the most masterful, respectful collection of women in this region I had ever seen. The piece Sister Heyward (page 122) brought tears to my eyes; she looked so much like my late grandmother.”

Graffiti, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 39 ½ × 48 inches
Private collection

 

The gallery in Charleston is Whyte's primary outlet, greatly aided by an effective website and an extensive mailing list. She no longer feels a need to participate in competitions hosted by the American Watercolor Society or other juried contests. She has enjoyed many plein-air invitational events where she paints with a number of artists, usually men, and for a while she participated in an event in historic Washington Park hosted by the Charleston Fine Art Dealers’ Association. Area painters take up stations while the public mingles and watches the paintings take shape. Whyte does not particularly relish competitive settings: “I don't want other people to feel badly—comes from my middle brother. I had many friends in high school, but my brother was shy, saying ‘I will never be as popular as Mary.’ I never want to hurt people's feelings.”

First Lotus, 2004
Watercolor on paper, 22 5/8 × 14 ¼ inches
Private collection

Chrisman's Lotus Pond, 2003
Oil on canvas, 29 ½ × 35 ¼ inches
Private collection

 

In order to sustain her demanding regimen and stay focused on her work, Whyte has found it useful to retreat for a few weeks every year. Usually escaping when it is hottest on Johns Island, she chooses secluded places where she can work with minimal distraction. For several years she returned to the Philadelphia area and enjoyed the pastoral countryside. First Lotus and Chrisman's Lotus Pond, with their harmonious coloration and subject matter, are reminiscent of Monet's work at Giverny, the small town to which he retired to avoid the hectic pace of Paris.

Genesis, 1999
Oil on canvas, 30 × 32 inches
Private collection

Reaching, 1998
Watercolor on paper, 20 ½ × 28 inches
Private collection

 

For Whyte landscapes and sketching outdoors are a soothing respite from her figurative work. She also travels a good deal—largely in connection with workshops or projects such as Working South—but sometimes for other reasons.

Watching the Chess Game, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 7 × 5 ¾ inches
Private collection

Solo, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 31 ½ × 28 ¼ inches
Private collection

 

One year she rented an apartment in the French Quarter for a month and took in the sights and sounds of New Orleans. She observed men at a chess game, a street musician, and met Mr. Noah, who would be her model for Shoe Shine (page 14), and the vendor who became Mr. Okra.

She is especially proud of one painting, The News at Café Du Monde; it consists of outdoor and indoor spaces separated by large panes of glass. The man at the left is intent on his newspaper—depicted with remarkable detail for watercolor—while the waitress inside looks wistfully out through the window. A younger man in blue walks by, oblivious to the people around him. The emotional isolation of the figures, the geometry of windows, and even the chairs scattered about recall Edgar Degas's masterpiece The Cotton Exchange at New Orleans.

Mr. Noah, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 10 × 8 ½ inches
Private collection

Mr. Okra, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 28 ½ × 38 ½ inches
Private collection

The News at Café Du Monde, 2008
Watercolor on paper, 31 × 32 ¾ inches
Private collection

 

In 2002 Whyte and Coleman celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary by going to Florence and renting an apartment near the Ponte Vecchio. While she took a month-long oil painting class in landscape at the Florence Academy of Art, Coleman took a class in gilding. Together they enjoyed the museums, streetscapes, and gastronomical delights that the great Renaissance city has to offer.

Crossing Bourbon, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 20 × 17 inches
Private collection

Morning Walk, Florence, 2002
Oil on panel, 12 × 9 inches
Private collection

Overlooking Florence, 2002
Oil on panel, 12 × 9 inches
Private collection

Flurries, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 23 ¾ × 31 inches
Collection of the artist

 

She had a very different experience in early 2011, when she joined her church on a mission trip to Ethiopia. It not only expanded her horizons but also gave some context for her work with the residents of Johns Island. But there was also the reality of living conditions there. “Ethiopia is brown. Dust, like crushed bone, is everywhere, clinging to the flanks of camels and donkeys, and the barefoot children who run behind them holding long sticks aloft…. If you go to Ethiopia you will taste the brown. It is in the food: the thin flat bread that tastes faintly of dirt and labor, or in the thick, pungent coffee that is made by a woman hunched over a small fire, with feet that fold inward. The brown is everywhere you go: in the poverty, oppression and struggle. It is harsh and gentle, forceful and yielding, frightening and breathtakingly beautiful.”

Just as the models for Working South moved on because there was little future in their chosen occupations, Whyte too continues to explore new themes.

Absolution (page 37) is a transitional painting with some of the darkness and grittiness of Eclipse (page 171) and Fifteen-Minute Break (page 7). In all three paintings, the figures are shown smoking, stand against somber backgrounds, and turn into the light. This chiaroscuro handling recalls such old masters as Caravaggio, as does the choice of subject. Painted after her completion of Working South, Absolution is the depiction of a man Whyte encountered at the American College of the Building Arts, which is located in Charleston's old jail. The artist was surprised to learn that he is a marine biologist. He also defied another implicit stereotype: he does not do drugs, but does not object to her portrayal of him doing so. The title has a dual meaning: he is experiencing transcendence by virtue of the weed he smokes and by the light that pours down on him.

Ever inquisitive, Whyte remains interested in subjects that are usually overlooked. Like Absolution, Tattoo employs the motifs of body art and dramatic lighting, and it has a different sensibility than her paintings of the Gullah women; it even verges on the surreal, a quality enhanced by the remarkable detailing of the eyeglasses. The setting also was a bit foreign: “It is the first time I have been in an establishment for tattoos—and was taken with the theatrical setting—dark lighting, blaring music, incense, Buddhas, paintings of serpents, skulls, etc. There were a couple of young women lying face down, stripped to the waist, getting tattoos.”

Tattoo, 2011
Watercolor on paper, 41 × 28 inches
Collection of the artist

Close-up of Tattoo

Face, 2012
Watercolor on paper, 27 ¾ × 23 inches
Collection of the artist

 

In Face her subject is Sean Davis, a veteran of Desert Storm, who has transformed himself from being a gun-carrying soldier to a clown with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Using her ingenuity and charm, Whyte managed to gain access to him when the circus came to Charleston. On meeting him, she opined, “I cannot imagine two vocations further apart,” but he quickly replied that the military gave him the discipline he needs in his new position, and he is delighted to make people laugh for a change. Remnants of his military experience are emphatically referenced in his T-shirt with its “call of duty/modern warfare 3” logo complete with the shadow of an armed soldier and the simulated dog tag—he is not allowed to wear the real one—that dangles around his neck. The implicit duality—of soldier and clown—is reflected in the juxtapositions of white and red makeup on black skin, balloons with a dog tag, and a backdrop split into dark and light sections.

Sketchbook drawings for Face, 2012
Graphite on paper, 11 × 17 inches
Collection of the artist

Leaning, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 17 ¼ × 13 ½ inches
Private collection

 

Since her arrival in the Carolina lowcountry, Mary Whyte and her art have blossomed. As she indicated in Alfreda's World, she has found “new meaning” that was somehow missing in Pennsylvania. She has embraced a climate, landscape, and culture very different from what she knew growing up, and she has mined these to create evocative and engaging paintings that appeal to a wide spectrum of people. She has made her mark on her community, her sate, and her region. In recognition of her talent and multi-faceted endeavors whe was selected for a 2013 Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award—the highest South Carolina gives in the arts.

As Whyte ascends the steps to her studio, she encounters the seven Italian words that have successfully guided her, yet other words come to mind to describe her and her endeavors. Virtuosity recognizes her technical skills, primarily in watercolor, but also in oil and drawing. She has effectively captured the illusion of smoke, steam, flesh, hair, and grass with mere brushstrokes. In this respect she has few equals. Whyte's art is a chronicle of her experiences: “Every place, every person has a story to tell. As artists our mission is to tell that story—not as journalists, but more as poets.” Compassion speaks of her empathy for people, whether portrait subjects, students, or, as she says, individuals “under the radar.”

Praise House, 2001
Watercolor on paper, 12 ¼ × 14 ¼ inches
Private collection

 

To all of these subjects she imparts a sense of dignity, conveying her respect for them and her conviction that they are worthy. Her daily life may be quite different from that of the people she portrays; nevertheless she blends her hopes with theirs and acknowledges the consummate humanity of all. Whyte believes in these people, and she conveys her optimism in luminous, color-filled compositions. Beauty for Whyte is not necessarily physical; it is also spiritual. For her, “subject matter is neither pretty nor ugly, as the beauty of a painting lies in the work itself. Everything is worthy of being painted, even a gray day.”

Boneyard, 2009
Watercolor on paper, 32 × 42 ¼ inches
Private collection

Last Light, 2005
Watercolor on paper, 20 ⅛ × 25 ¼ inches
Private collection