John Laviers Wheatley [commonly known as John Wheatley] was born the son of Sir Zachariah Wheatley, in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, on 23 January 1892, and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 1912-13. He then lived and worked briefly in Newlyn, Penzance, Cornwall. At some point he received lessons from Stanhope Alexander Forbes (1857-1947) and Walter Sickert (1860-1942).
During World War One Wheatley served in the Artists' Rifles and, from 1918 to 1920 was an Official War Artist. He then taught at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London from 1920 to 1925. In 1925 he moved to South Africa to take up the appointment of Michaelis Professor of Fine Art and Architecture at the University of Cape Town, a post he held until 1937 when he became Director of the National Gallery of South Africa in Cape Town. He returned to England in 1938 and from 1938 to 1947 was Director of Sheffield City Art Galleries. During World War Two he again served as an Official War Artist and received commissions to paint portraits of military and civic dignitaries. From 1948 to 1950 he was Curator of the short-lived National Gallery of British Sports and Pastimes in London.
Wheatley first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1914 and continued to do so frequently until (posthumously) 1956. He also exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, New English Art Club, Carfax Gallery, Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Cooling Galleries, Grosvenor Gallery, Goupil Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters & Gravers, and Leicester Galleries in London; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; and at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. A joint exhibition of work by Wheatley and Muirhead Bone (1876-1953) was held at the Grosvenor Galleries in London in 1922. He participated in the art competition held as part of the Olympic Games in London in 1948.
He was elected a member of the New English Art Club (NEAC) in 1917; an Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (ARE) in 1921; an Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society (ARWS) in 1943; an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1945l and a full member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (RE) in 1947.
In 1912 he married the painter and sculptor Grace Wolfe, subsequently known as Grace Wheatley (1882-1970).
His address was given as Gwavas Studios, Newlyn, Penzance, Cornwall in 1914; 1 Vale Road, Chelsea, London in 1924; 20 Russell Square, London in 1925; 13 Ladbroke Grove, London in 1932; 158 Notting Hill Gate, London in 1937 and 1938; 30 Chartfield Avenue, London in 1940; The Toll Bar, Froggatt Edge, Sheffield in 1921; Derby House, Stratford Place, London in 1948; 5 Westleight Avenue, Putney Hill, London in 1949 and 1950; and Heathfield House, Windmill Road, Wimbledon Park Side, London in 1951 and 1955. He died in London on 17 November 1955.
Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)