THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603260151
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
Dick Whalen first saw the carrier America as a young officer.
He was peering over the rail from the bridge of the Norfolk-based destroyer Steinaker.
Whalen and the America were new to the Navy. Whalen graduated from the Naval Academy in 1963; the America was commissioned in 1965. Each would have a long career with the service.
Whalen would serve until 1993, retiring as a captain. The America would remain in the fleet until this year; she is scheduled to be decommissioned in August.
``I went to sea aboard destroyers until 1968 and had a chance to be in battle groups in which the America was participating,'' recalled Whalen, 55. ``The destroyers were either part of the ASW (anti-submarine warfare) screen or serving as plane guard, 1,500 yards astern, as the carrier maneuvered.''
He never served aboard the America, but such a perspective on the mammoth ship would serve him well when Whalen, a noted marine artist, painted the carrier's decommissioning portrait late last year.
``This is sort of a farewell portrait,'' Whalen explained.
Upon retirement from the Navy, Whalen went to work at Old Dominion University as the school's first director of military activities. There, among other duties, he has recruited veterans, including two of his uncles, to participate in a course about World War II taught by ODU's president, Dr. James V. Koch. Though ashore and out of uniform, Whalen's interest in marine art has continued unabated.
When the Navy prepared to commission its latest Nimitz-class carrier, the John C. Stennis, last year, Whalen was commissioned by the Navy League to paint its portrait.
``After completing the Stennis painting, which I enjoyed doing, I started thinking about other carriers in the area and I thought about the America going on her final cruise,'' Whalen said. ``I contacted the ship back in August and did preliminary sketches. In December, two-thirds of the way through their deployment, they called, by satellite, and said, `Go for it!' ''
Whalen spent his Christmas break working on the painting. The America's final cruise was to the Adriatic, a stark, cold place in winter, in support of the Bosnian peacekeeping mission. Whalen sought to capture that coldness, through the use of color and shading, in his portrait.
There is another ship in the portrait, an escort, on the horizon, just off the carrier's bow.
``I needed an escort in the picture, so I plugged in the cruiser Normandy, on her first deployment,'' Whalen said.
One of Whalen's three sons, Ensign Todd Whalen, is the communications officer aboard the Normandy. It was his first cruise.
``It looked nice, having a conventional Aegis cruiser with the old aircraft carrier,'' the elder Whalen said.
Whalen's interest in art predates his naval service, going back to his childhood. The son of a World War II naval officer, Whalen began to sketch ships when his father provided him with recognition cards used to identify vessels at sea. The first carrier he painted was the Franklin; his father won a Silver Star while serving aboard her during World War II.
Before 1995, several paintings from his vast body of work already had garnered widespread critical acclaim. One, of the conventional Aegis cruiser Mobile Bay, which Whalen commanded, hangs in the Mobile Bay City Museum. Another, of the destroyer William C. Fitzgerald, named for a Naval Academy classmate of Whalen's who was killed in Vietnam, is scheduled to be displayed permanently at Annapolis. Two of his paintings have been used as covers by the prestigious U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. The portrait of the America will appear as a cover on an upcoming issue of the Naval Engineering Journal.
Whalen points out that high quality lithographic reproductions of his paintings make it possible for Navy personnel, from seaman to admiral, to have a keepsake from ships they have served aboard. He and his agent, Imperial Gallery of Virginia Beach, have kept the cost down to make the prints affordable to all who might want them. Prints of the America, which sell for $25 each at the gallery, were made available to the ship's crew at half price.
``The day of the first bad snowstorm, I delivered 1,000 lithographs to the Navy to fly over to the Mediterranean,'' Whalen said.
The prints also were sold at events coinciding with the ship's return to Norfolk in February. They will be available at a reunion, to be held in Norfolk in April, of those who have served aboard the America and at the ship's decommissioning in August.
``We reckon that 100,000 sailors served on that ship in the 30-odd years she steamed around,'' Whalen said. MEMO: For more information about Dick Whalen's art, contact Tami at Imperial
Gallery, 540 Tilden Ave., Virginia Beach, VA 23462, or call 497-2342. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
With the America in the background at Naval Station Norfolk, Dick
Whalen displays his portrait of the carrier.
by CNB