Many of us went to the Met in the 1960s to see Rembrandt’s Aristotle with a Bust of Homer because the museum had just paid $2.3 million for it, the highest price ever paid for a painting at that time. When John Whalley’s mother, who had studied at the Pratt Institute, took him to the museum, he was enthralled by the painting itself. “I was fascinated by the gold chain and today I still respond to the thrill of light falling on things and on natural objects.”
Spigot, 2025, oil on panel, 18 x 20 in.
Whalley’s studio is a kind of cabinet of curiosities—natural objects and well-made, well-used and well-loved manufactured objects arranged categorically on the shelves and the floor—collected by him and his wife, Ellen, at flea markets and walks along the beach. The objects are a never-ending source of inspiration, brought together in thoughtful vignettes such as House Wren.
He and Ellen found the green-painted board with its nail holes and scars that serves as the background. A collector’s card of a house wren rests slightly off center on a wood box and a feather from their collection rests on top. The card is from Whalley’s father’s collection of Arm & Hammer bird cards that the company inserted in their boxes of baking soda to promote conservation and to make the public aware of the need to protect wild birds.
House Wren, 2026, egg tempera on panel, 161⁄8 x 20 in.
Whalley’s painting is in the ancient technique of egg tempera. Pigments are mixed (tempered) with egg yolk and water and then applied to a firm support (usually a wood panel) in thin, nearly transparent layers, to build up a hard complex surface.
Last Cord, 2025, oil on panel, 30 x 30 in.
Another assembled still life is Spigot, rendered in oil paint. Whalley creates graphite drawings and watercolor, egg tempera and oil paintings. When I asked him why he uses so many different media he replied that some subjects call for a different medium and often it’s an intuitive choice. “There’s a richness to the colors in oil painting and glazing,” he says. “Light penetrates the medium and reflects back out, enhancing the color suspended in it. Tempera tends to be more flat.”
Round Brushes, 2025, oil on panel, 25½ x 20 in.
He had the sheet of oxidized copper which is the painting’s background, and he searched among his collection of oxidized spigots to find just the one to bring out its beauty.
“I’ve always loved graphite for portraits,” he explains. A stellar example of his portraits is his drawing Nate. He and his fellow Maine artist, Nathan Allard, drew portraits of each other. Allard is participating in the 2026 Monhegan Artists’ Residency on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine.
Pemaquid Wave, 2025, graphite on paper, 24 x 36 in.
Whalley’s still lifes are assembled from the objects in his studio which often find themselves in groupings of similar objects or in incongruous juxtapositions that give them new life and new meaning. Each object sits quietly on a shelf but is ready to tell its story when it’s picked up.
I first wrote about him here in 2010 and have had the pleasure of watching his work progress over the years. His drawings and paintings impress not so much because they arouse nostalgia, but that they establish connections with the people who used the objects and the processes that made them.
Spirals, 2025, oil on panel, 24 x 16 in.
Whalley encourages us to “slow down and look at things.”
An exhibition of his recent work titiled Things As They Are, will be shown at Greenhut Galleries' new location in Portland, Maine, August 6 through September 26, with a reception on opening day from 5 to 7 p.m. —
Nate, 2026, graphite on paper, 19½ x 14 in.
Greenhut Galleries 71 Cove Street • Portland, ME 04101 • (207) 772-2693 www.greenhutgalleries.com
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