THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512050299
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
When Dick Whalen joined the Navy, he didn't just want to see the world. He wanted to record it on canvas.
His abiding interest in art persisted throughout a 30-year Navy surface warfare career that included command of two warships and concluded in 1993 when he retired with the rank of captain.
It has continued during a second career as the first director of military activities at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
When the Navy League needed a marine artist to paint a portrait of the new carrier John C. Stennis - to be commissioned into service Saturday - it commissioned Whalen, 54, to do the work.
The picture now hangs aboard the Navy's newest aircraft carrier in the commanding officer's stateroom.
Whalen, a stickler for detail and accuracy, worked closely with the prospective commanding officer and air boss, as well as the builder.
He pored over engineering drawings and photos of the Navy's already commissioned Nimitz-class carriers and studied the actual ships both pierside and in the harbor.
``It was done during the heat of August,'' recalls Whalen. ``I was back and forth between tugboats and the pier. It was 110 degrees - at least - on that concrete.''
He also made numerous trips to Newport News Shipbuilding, where the John C. Stennis was nearing completion, to capture the subtle changes that distinguish different ships within a class.
The result is an amazingly true-to-life picture of the ship under way, her stately bulk moving gracefully through the sea.
The painting is the latest in a long string of artistic accomplishments by Whalen.
He painted a similar portrait of the Mobile Bay, an Aegis cruiser he skippered from 1986-89. The original hangs in the Mobile Bay City Museum.
He's painted submarines for former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Frank Kelso III. Two of his paintings have graced the covers of the prestigious U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings.
Much of his artistic output has been devoted to painting pictures of ships for their former skippers.
Whalen is especially proud of a portrait of the Fitzgerald, an Aegis destroyer named for a Naval Academy classmate who was killed in Vietnam.
The original is to be hung at Annapolis, most likely at the 35th reunion of his class, in 1998.
He designed the class crest that was used on the Naval Academy's 1963 class rings and elsewhere, the ship's coat-of-arms for the Mobile Bay, and a special flag designating her as ``Freedom's Flagship.''
Whalen also paints airplanes, landscapes, seascapes and abstracts.
He's done cartoons, caricatures, illustrations and designed publications. He's particularly fond of his pencil sketches of kids; especially team pictures, most often of soccer teams.
Whalen's artistic success is all the more remarkable in that he has never taken an art lesson.
``I guess you could say I'm self-styled and self-taught. I just sort of learned by doing.''
Some 5,000 prints of his painting of the John C. Stennis have been prepared for the commissioning and will be available from several sources at what Whalen describes as a very reasonable price.
A portion of the profits from their sale will go to the Stennis for the crew's scholarship fund. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
DAWSON MILLS
Dick Whalen holds a copy of the portrait he painted of the John C.
Stennis. The painting hangs aboard the Navy's newest aircraft
carrier in the commanding officer's stateroom.
Graphic
CARRIER'S COMMISSIONING
The John C. Stennis will be commissioned into service as the
Navy's newest aircraft carrier during ceremonies beginning at 11
a.m. Saturday at Pier 12 of Norfolk Naval Station. More than 20,000
invited guests are expected to attend.
by CNB