Gregory Whitt
I was born in 1955 in Maryville, Tennessee.
My mother would sit with me and draw sketches when I was 5 years old. It must have enthralled me because from then on art was what I was going to do. Cars and airplanes were what interested me most and still are at 60 some odd years later, although architecture has become a favorite as well. I love to include architecture into my work of the automobile, as it definitely adds another dimension to it.
Early in my venture into the world of art, I realized you have to pay bills to survive, a hard thing for an artist to do in this world. So, I found jobs that would need artists. I worked at, early in my career, at Union Carbide Corp. in Oak Ridge, Tn., Martin-Marietta Corp. in Orlando, Fl., Porsche Automobiles in Weissach, Germany, and architectural jobs with a couple of nationally known architect firms based in Orlando.
At last, I went to work as a freelance artist in Orlando for 25+ years. I have done work for many well known corporations in architecture, but also in the automotive realm. Such companies as Winston Cup Racing, Chrysler Corp. NASCAR, A.J. Foyt racing, Richard Petty, Camel GT racing, Crane Cams and many, many more.
My most interesting job came as a HUGE surprise to me. I used to read Road & Track magazine religiously. Back then, when Bill Motta was the art director, R&T would have a good deal of auto art through the magazine. I started sending spot drawings and ultimately had several printed in the pages. R&T would do stories on interesting people in the auto world. This particular issue I read was about Tony Lapine, then head of Porsche Styling. The article was a brief history of his story on how he came to be Porches chief stylist. Tony came from a communist block country to the US. His mother, father, and himself ended up in the Midwest US. He said the only thing one could do there for a living is to be a corn farmer or go to Detroit. He chose Detroit. He was looking for engineering but, took a wrong turn and ended up in GM styling. Styling convinced him that he wanted to stay in styling and there he thrived. He eventually ended up in Europe as the chief stylist of Opal. At a get together for designers from America with designers from Europe, Tony met the head of Porsche. They got on famously and Tony was hired away by Porsche to run their design team in Weissach. He wrote that he was very grateful to the Americans for giving him the chance and direction in automotive design.
In reading this story, I thought to myself, maybe Tony would see in my circumstance, the same as his in his early career. Although, I had no formal automotive design experience or schooling, I loved the automobile as art and design. About a year it took me to put a portfolio together of my ideas and artwork, I sent it off to Porsche. Low and behold, I was hired. I was in Heaven, knowing a miracle just happened for me. This is the really interesting part. I got to Germany and Rick Soderborg, a studio chief, took me to Personnel for Porsche in Stuttgart. He asked me why I was there. I told him Tony sent me a letter hiring me as a designer. He said he didn’t know anything about it. Come to find out, neither did Personnel at Porsche. They all called Tony up to find out what was going on. He told Personnel in the beginning I was coming for an interview, but when I got there, he told them that it was just joke I told you and I want you to hire him.
And that is how I came to be an automotive designer in 1980 at Porshe.
These days I care for my Mother and do art for myself . As you can see from my artwork, my LOVE is great detail in my work. God is in the details. This world is full of great intricacies and it all interests me to no end. I love to produce it in my work to hopefully wake people up to the beauty and wonder in this world that we are blessed to live in.
le up to the beauty and wonder in this world that we are blessed to live in.
