Meet Frank Whipple of whipple collage art in Pico Robertson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Frank Whipple.

Frank, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I come from a background comprised mainly of artists and musicians, growing up in Hollywood with quite a few friends who also had diversely talented family members, creatively involved either professionally or as a hobby and was surrounded by and felt the influence of the arts from an early age, with my father a painter and mother an opera singer. From a fairly early age of 6 or 7 years old, I developed an interest in graphic arts and illustration, with a particular fondness for the comic book artists and science fiction/pulp novels and stories of the 1950s and 60s.

A bit later, in my late teens and 20s, I became more inclined toward the Surrealists such as Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, Roberto Matta, Leonora Carrington, and many others over the ensuing years. Off and on through the decades, I dabbled at painting and drawing, attempting to locate a style and medium which suited me best. Throughout this time, during my 20s and 30s I was making my living at least in part as a “book scout,” buying and selling used and antiquarian books and ephemera, with many of the pieces I obtained either obsolete or damaged in some way, and thus less desirable as collectible items for resale.

Eventually, about 30 years ago now, I decided to return to actually learning more about the technique and exercise of drawing and took some classes which proved to be extremely inspirational, helping me to gain more confidence in my facility, and after a short while spent making abstract paintings, my interest gravitated to the making of collages, incorporating many of the antique pieces of ephemera that remained from my bookselling days into new forms, cutting and combining the resulting abstract and figurative images into compositions that satisfied my earlier interest in both sci-fi art and the surrealism which prefigured the work of most of the mid-century era’s exciting and fantastic illustrators.

In the years since I began working with hand cut paper, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had some of my works included in a wide range of gallery shows in Los Angeles, Claremont, Santa Rosa, Santa Fe, etc. and am looking forward to participating in group shows coming up later this year in Highland Park at the MorYork Gallery and at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara, California.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I’ve found that although there may at times be obstacles of the more or less common variety, such as difficulty getting attention from galleries as a relative unknown, and the sometimes frustrating lack of spaces still available to show new work, if you have the work and believe in it, eventually you will find an opportunity to have it seen.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
Well, I work for myself, mostly along, and have done so for more than 30 years now, whether it be in the making of collage pieces, or in the world of searching out and re-selling collectible books, antique furnishings, and objects of art. I love being able to work from home and the possibility of starting and stopping any particular project when I feel moved to do so, and the freedom of choosing my own hours to be engaged in whatever I’m most interested in at the time.

The advances in readily available technology in recent years and the widespread use of social media platforms has allowed me to meet with dozens of interesting and creatively stimulating individuals from all over the world, and this ability to interact with and learn about opportunities in the art world as a consequence has been more valuable than I ever would have predicted.

What were you like growing up?
As a kid I was overall pretty active and interested in playing hard, some sports as most kids were, but not usually in an organized or team setting, and there were long stretches where I was very much a bookish sort of child. When I was just about ten years old, I moved with several members of my family to Rome, Italy, for nearly a year, and probably became what could be characterized as introverted during that period. We were not exactly living in luxury as the main incentive for the move had to do with the ambitions of my mother and aunt to make progress in the classical music and operatic world that was more accessible in Europe at the time.

I was out of school for that entire near year as well, not making many friends and barely learning to speak the language, but did spend quite a few hours of most days walking around the streets of the old city, wandering through the flea markets and museums, and reading a lot of books that had been left behind by the previous tenant of the apartment we’d rented.

Upon our return to the States, we kind of took back up where we’d left off, moving back to an apartment in Hollywood that my dad had rented for us. He’d never joined the family overseas despite the plan for him to do so, as he opted instead to remain behind and continue to develop contacts in the art world, which had begun to yield some positive response to his paintings while we were away.

Anyway, I got back into the swing of things again pretty much and resumed friendships with most of the same classmates and neighborhood kids I’d known previously, returning to the same elementary school in Beachwood Canyon and from then onto Jr. High and High School as did most of my friends.

Pricing:

• most of my works are priced between $300 and $600, unframed, depending on size generally

Contact Info:

• Email: grawip@sbcglobal.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frankwhipple3/?hl=en

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.