Abstract painter and teacher, born in Blackpool. He attended the School of Art there, 1951–7, then Royal Academy Schools, 1962–6. Whitaker was a Young Contemporaries prize winner in 1965 and was a runner-up, Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in 2000. Teaching experience included Brighton, 1966–80, Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford, 1975–84, and Wimbledon School of Art also from 1975. In 1973 he spent two months in America on a Mark Rothko Memorial Fellowship, in 1993 a semester in Point Richmond, on an exchange with Judith Foosaner. Showed at Serpentine Gallery, Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne and elsewhere, in 1994 sharing a three-man exhibition at Morley Gallery. There were solo shows at Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2002 and 2004.