Warren Wheelock

Although his obituary described him as a “commercial artist,” Warren Frank Wheelock was a man of many hats; his roles throughout his life included veteran, cartoonist, industrial designer, sculptor, painter, and competitor in the 1932 Olympics. He was a native of New England, a student in New York City, and a teacher in North Carolina before spending his final years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He worked in many mediums and stylistically he was equally diverse, ranging from representational to abstract.

Wheelock’s birthplace was Sutton, Massachusetts, but he spent his childhood in Webster, ten miles away. He was a descendant of Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregationalist minister and founder of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and was also related to Ralph Waldo Emerson. The artist left high school at age seventeen to volunteer in the Spanish-American War and served in Company K of the 6th Massachusetts volunteer infantry regiment. 

Between 1902 and 1905, Wheelock studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and subsequently offered drawing classes there until 1910. Simultaneously, for six years he taught anatomy at the Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. Among his many pursuits, he did political cartoons for the New York Times and Current Opinion magazine. His 1917 draft card lists his employer as the Dry Goods Economist, a trade publication for retailers. In addition, he designed such products as a razor for Durham Duplex, a streamlined Royal typewriter, objects for Steuben Glass Works, and mobiles for children. 

Leaving New York behind, Wheelock retreated to Linville Falls, North Carolina, a summer mountain resort in the western part of the state. He lived in the local schoolhouse while building a cabin which he completed in 1915; he stayed there for seven years before returning north. He took up whittling and shaped a pair of dachshunds that, once converted into iron, served as andirons. According to a profile in Time magazine, “by 1922 he was a full-fledged sculptor.” He went on to carve both stone and wood, allowing the material to shape the final product, often svelte semi-abstract figures. He also carved soapstone and made some plaster bas reliefs, and created bronze pieces depicting such historical figures as Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Babe Ruth. His most ambitious undertaking was a larger than life-size bronze statue of General Friedrich von Steuben which stands on a terrace near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition he painted local genre scenes with a narrative element, ones that were described in his obituary as “Americana.” He believed in experimenting, declaring that “when a man stops adventuring, he stops being an artist.” 

In 1932, Wheelock participated in the sculpture competition during the Los Angeles Olympics. Around 540 artists from thirty-one countries took part, and all works had to have a sport-related theme. The subject of Wheelock’s submission is unknown; he did not win a medal. Between 1940 and 1945 Wheelock served as the head of the sculpture department at The Cooper Union in New York. He was a founding director of the Society of Independent Artists and a director of the Salons of America.