Welcome to the Jeff Whipple website. There are many categories of creative work on over 1100 pages in this site.
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| LEEPA-RATTNER MUSEUM PRESS RELEASE ABOUT THE JEFF WHIPPLE RETROSPECTIVE |
Jeff Whipple: Past, Present, Future
August 9 – December 7, 2025
James W. Mitchell, Jr., Center, and Interactive Galleries
Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art
Tarpon Springs, Florida
The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art proudly presents Jeff Whipple: Past, Present, Future, a retrospective celebrating five decades of provocative, concept-driven work by Florida-based artist Jeff Whipple. Known for his signature three-line motif known as the “spanasm” and a razor-sharp wit, Whipple’s multidisciplinary practice spans painting, video, performance, and installation, exploring themes of mortality, identity, and the absurdity of modern life.
Over the past fifty years, he has built a unique style that includes drawing, painting, sculpture, theater, digital media, and public art, often blurring the lines between them. His work reflects a lifelong investigation of what it means to perceive, interpret, and inhabit the world, filtered through a lens that is at once skeptical, incisive, and marked by a wry, understated humor.
This exhibition traces the evolution of his singular visual language—from early existential compositions to recent works that invite viewers to consider how imagination shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. At turns engaging, irreverent, and delightfully bizarre, Whipple’s work offers a poignant, and at times humorous reflection on what it means to be human in an ever-shifting world.
Past, Present, Future, on view August 9 through December 7, 2025, is Whipple’s first major retrospective since 2001 when the former Gulf Coast Museum of Art organized his 25-year retrospective which traveled throughout the state of Florida. Past, Present, Future showcases eighty works by Whipple created over the course of 50 years and includes paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and four interactive stations showcasing a selection of his multi-media films and digital installations. Visitors can also try their hand at Whipple’s interactive miniature golf course in the museum’s Interactive Gallery. |
| FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE RETROSPECTIVE CLICK HERE |
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"Reckoning", (self-portrait), oil on canvas, 60"x 48", 2025 ©
This is currently in a survey show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
JEFF WHIPPLE CAREER OVERVIEW
Since 1980, Jeff Whipple has had 86 solo exhibitions in galleries, colleges and museums including the Tampa Museum of Art, the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, the Museum of Art, DeLand, and the Boca Raton Museum of Art. His art has been in dozens of group exhibitions across the USA and has received 51 top awards in competitions.
Whipple has a 50-year retrospective at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs, Florida through the fall of 2025. The show will travel to the Spartanburg Museum of Art in South Carolina in 2026.
As a playwright, Whipple has had 22 productions since the mid-1980s, mostly in Chicago and Florida. He’s won several playwriting awards including five Florida statewide playwriting competitions.
Whipple won Florida Individual Artist Fellowships four times from 1982 to 2014. He won the same type of state grant in Illinois in 1985 and 1990 when he lived in Chicago. In 2001, he won the $10,000 Fulton Ross Artist Grant. In 2018, he won a $25,000 artist grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
The Tampa Museum of Art commissioned Whipple to create a large-scale outdoor video and art installation in Miami Beach during the week of Art Basel Miami in 2006. He has had two dozen other major public art commissions since 1998.
In the early 1980s, Whipple co-directed a printmaking atelier in Tampa, Florida where he collaborated with many renown artists including Jim Dine, Alice Aycock, James Rosenquist, and Robert Rauschenberg.
Whipple’s artwork is in two dozen corporate, municipal, college and museum collections.
He received an MFA in Painting from the University of South Florida in 1980. He has taught at several colleges including Arizona State University, Florida State University, and Northern Illinois University. |
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"Thief ", oil on canvas, 30"x 40", 2024 ©
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“Heart of the Bay” by Jeff Whipple 2024
Concrete and paint with UV protection clearcoat
55” x 66” x 8”
Vogel Park, North Bay Village, Florida
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILED CONTENTS PAGE
Click here for Jeff Whipple's artist page on facebook.
Jeff Whipple is an award-winning artist and writer. He is based in Jacksonville, Florida.
Jeff Whipple new novel, "Cherub Trouble" is a humorous story about a young artist caught in a series of art calamities in an ultra-rich Florida coastal community. Many aspects of the story are based on Jeff Whipple's actual experiences.
The peculiarities and difficulties of an artist’s life unfold in Whipple’s droll novel… Sharp, wickedly humorous characterizations, such as “She had a face-lift that made her look like an astronaut during a launch,” coupled with absurd Florida-centric situations, are reminiscent of the works of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey. A rollicking, satirical take on fine art and the Sunshine State. — Kirkus Reviews
It's available on Amazon for $20.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK TO AMAZON BOOKS
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5 SCULPTURES FOR A ST. PETERSBURG PARK click here for info and pictures
 
Jeff painted two portrait images for the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, 2018.
The portraits feature jazz drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. and artist Liz Gibson. Click on the images for details.
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"The Distinguished Speaker Series".
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SERIES
CLICK HERE to see the recent exhibition of these works.
75-FOOT MURAL FOR WASHINGTON DC HIGH SCHOOL
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
 
PORTRAITS
Portrait of Lana and Wayne Wood, oil on canvas, 66" x 60", 2018
Portrait of Elizabeth Brincklow and Zeke Durica with Jimmy, oil on canvas, 30" x 40", 2017
"Portrait of Reilly Edwards", oil on canvas, 36" x 24", 2015
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"Portrait of Sophia Nitsche", oil on canvas, 24" x 20", 2014
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If you have any questions or comments, please send an email:
STILL LIFE PAINTINGS PAGE
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FIGURE DRAWING PAGE
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New Orleans East Library Public Art Commission
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Jeff Whipple was commissioned to make 11 paintings for a new library in New Orleans. He used 16 actual library patrons as models for the paintings that depict the joy of reading.
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The paintings were selected for the "2012 Year In Review" by the Public Art Network as one of the 50 most compelling public art projects in the USA
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FOR MORE INFO AND IMAGES CLICK HERE
6 MINUTE VIDEO ABOUT THE PROJECT
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Solo show at the Museum of Art in DeLand, Florida, 2010
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