Richard Whelan collection

Little information is known about Whelan’s personal life other than what is described in the chronology, below.

1946

David Richard Whelan born to David J. Whelan and Alice Tedford Whelan on November 12 in Bronxville, NY. RW Grows up in Westchester, NY with them and his sister, Nancy Whelan Parella.

1964

Graduates from high school, The Taft School in Watertown, CT. Issued identity card by the US Coast Guard - “Ordinary Seaman, Wiper, Steward’s Department (FH).”

1969

Graduates from Yale with a B.A. in Art History with Honors. Awarded the A.C. Goodyear Prize for Outstanding work in the History of Art. Begins graduate studies in art history at Yale that fall.

1970

Leaves the Yale graduate program after Spring semester.

1971

Whelan moves to Manhattan, and continues to reside in New York City for the duration of his life. Proposes to painter Dona Nelson.

1972

RW works at the New York Public Library in Preparations Services.

1974

An adaptation of RW’s Yale Honors thesis, Anthony Caro is published by Penguin in London.

1975

Another edition of Anthony Caro is published by E.P. Dutton in New York.

1976

Begins referring to himself as an “independent scholar and curator.” Living in New York, Whelan begins writing about art for a number of arts and culture magazines as a freelance writer.

1978

RW and Dona Nelson divorce

1979

RW travels to Venice for Venezia ’79 – La Fotografia.

circa 1980

RW ceases his work as a magazine writer in order to focus on book projects full time.

1981

RW’s second book, Double Take: A Comparative Look at Photographs is published by Clarkson N. Potter.

1985

RW’s book Robert Capa: A Biography published by Knopf, RW’s first major biography. French, German, Japanese, and Hungarian, and English editions are subsequently published: Mazarine, 1985; Faber, 1985; Kōdansha, 1988; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1989; University of Nebraska Press, 1994; Ediciones Aldeasa, 2003. A second book, of Robert Capa’s photographs, Robert Capa: Photographs, edited with Cornell Capa, is published later that year by Knopf in the United States and Faber & Faber in London. RW travels some this year, both nationally and internationally (Arles, France, Raleigh/Durham, within New York State).

1989

RW travels to England for pleasure, and later that year to Budapest to attend a photography conference.

1990

RW’s book Drawing the Line: The Korean War, 1950-1953 is published by Little, Brown in the United States and also Faber and Faber in London. Now devoting much of his time to research for his upcoming biography about Alfred Stieglitz, RW embarks on a trip to the Southwest to conduct research and explore parts of New Mexico and eastern Arizona. While in Abiquiu, NM, he interviews Eliot Porter, among others.

1991

Continuing his collaboration with Cornell Capa, Children of War, Children of Peace: Photographs by Robert Capa, edited with Cornell Capa is published in the United States and Japan (Boston: Bulfinch Press/ Little, Brown; Tokyo: JICC). Whelan’s edited versions of Emerson’s writing, accompanied by RW’s explanatory texts, are published as, Self-Reliance: The Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson as Inspiration for Daily Living.

1992

RW compiles work by and about Samuel Johnson for an unpublished volume. Continuing his collaboration with Cornell Capa, RW begins working as a Consulting Curator for the Cornell and Robert Capa Archives, at ICP, in New York, a position he held for the rest of his life. Also in collaboration with Cornell Capa, he and RW edit and publish a book, Cornell Capa: Photographs.

1993

RW receives two grants to continue his research on Stieglitz in Italy. From May 18 -June 2, RW stays at the Hotel Do Pozzi in Venice, Italy with a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. While there, he works to try to find the locations where some of Stieglitz’s earliest photographs that were taken. From June 2 - July 1st, RW stays at the Villa Serbelloni, in Bellagio, Italy, as a Resident Scholar with the Rockefeller Foundation. He researches some of the areas in Northern Italy that Stieglitz explored and photographed from 1887-1894 while traveling first with his family and then during his honeymoon. RW also writes several chapters of the Stieglitz biography. Originally scheduled to leave on July 5, RW is forced to cut his trip short when the retina in his right eye detaches, and he must fly back to New York for treatment.

1995

Dennis Stock: Made in America; Photographs, 1951-1971 is published; it includes an introduction by RW. RW’s exhaustive project, Alfred Stieglitz: A Biography is published by Little, Brown. It is subsequently translated into German and reissued as a paperback in the United States (Da Capo Press, 1997). RW presents a paper at a Society of Photographic Education (SPE) Conference at the Palmer Museum of Art at University Park, PA. RW begins teaching a course on the history of photojournalism and documentary photography at ICP, which he continues to do for a number of years.

1996

RW writes the introduction for another book that he and Cornell Capa edit together: Robert Capa: Photographs. French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese editions are later published.

1997

RW begins working the first book in a series that each follow different visual themes. Each of these books rely heavily on their images, though RW wrote an introduction for each of them and also included a number of pertinent quotes. The first book was published in 1997, The Book of Rainbows: Art, Literature, Science, & Mythology, through First Glance Books.

1998

The second and third books in the image survey series are published this year in collaboration with Arnold Skolnick: The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars, and Impressionist Flowers: Art of the Bouquet. RW also works on the film, Robert Capa: An Introduction to His Life and Work with his brother in-law, Vincent Parrella.

1999

RW edited and wrote an introduction to the new edition of Robert Capa’s original 1947 World War II memoir published under the same title, Slightly Out of Focus. Also published this year was Heart of Spain: Robert Capa’s photographs of the Spanish Civil War which RW worked on in collaboration with Catherine Coleman and Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúa. RW begins compiling images for a book project about Presidential Campaigns which he collaborated on with his friend and former landlord, Evan Cornog.

2000

Hats in the Ring: an Illustrated History of American Presidential Campaigns, by RW and Evan Cornog, is published. RW also edits and introduces a volume of Alfred Stieglitz’s writing, Stieglitz on Photography: his selected essays and notes. Sarah Greenough’s introduction and complete bibliography of Stieglitz’s writings accompanied the volume.

2001

Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection is published in English and then in French, German, Italian, Greek and Japanese.

2002

Within the Phiadon “55” series, RW’s book, Frederick Evans, is published.

2007

RW dies on May 23. This is War! Robert Capa at Work is published posthumously in November.