T O D A Y - Berwick Academy

Patricia Baldwin
Whipple Arts Center:
Celebrating 25 Years
thanks, we appreciate and honor the commitment to
the arts on the part of her daughter, Patricia Baldwin
Whipple, and we recall the many years of outstanding
performances and exhibits of Berwick’s students who
have benefited so much from the gift of this facility and
from the school’s arts programs.
While Berwick Academy is neither a
conservatory nor a fine arts school, the Patricia Baldwin
Whipple Arts Center has stood for 25 years now as a
visible monument and tribute to the place that the arts
hold in the Academy’s mission of educating the whole
person. Likewise, the arts programs play a key role in
supporting the school’s core values: balance, stretching
through engagement, a community of excellence, and
commitment to integrity.
When the Patricia Baldwin Whipple Arts
Center was dedicated September 14, 1985, Vincent
Durnan, Headmaster, remarked, “This beautiful
building will mean so much to students for many
years to come, and it certainly provides a marvelous
home for the arts at Berwick Academy. In our quest for
excellence in education, we have long subscribed to a
balanced program providing intellectual rigor, physical
growth, and an appreciation for the arts.” Mrs. Winifred
Barrett Baldwin, donor of the facility as a memorial to
her daughter, Patricia Baldwin Whipple, was present
at the dedication, and Dr. Durnan said to her, “The
applause, Mrs. Baldwin, will echo throughout these
walls for years to come.” As we refl ect on the 25 years
of the presence of this center on the Berwick campus
and what it has meant to the Academy, we remember
Mrs. Winifred Barrett Baldwin’s generous gift with
In speaking of his Aunt Pat or “A.P.” at the
dedication ceremony, D. Stuart Dunnan focused
on the quality of “A Loving Objectivity” in Patricia
Baldwin Whipple’s work as an artist and an observer.
He said, “In A.P.’s paintings we can see the historian’s
understanding and the artist’s skill combined by
this unifying perspective of loving objectivity.” He
remarked that it is in her watercolors, where she sought
“to create not from her own ego but rather to represent
what she loved,” that this perspective is best illustrated.
Mr. Dunnan expressed the wish that “the perspective of
loving objectivity which this woman developed in her
life …take root in this place.” He remarked,
May all who learn and practice here always
passionately but objectively love the world,
seeking always to understand something of
the truth which is refl ected within it. For
in this quest for humble understanding, the
gifts of the artist, the historian … and
the saints are all united, just as they
were united in my aunt. My aunt excelled
in this quest, and it is entirely fi tting that
she should be remembered here, where
the same quest will be begun again a
thousandfold in the years to come.
(D. Stuart Dunnan. “Patricia Baldwin
Whipple—A Loving Objectivity.”
September 14, 1985).
Indeed this quest for understanding may be
seen time and again in the work of the young artists
that have begun their journeys at Berwick Academy.
Deloris White, Director of Fine Arts, Lower School
Art Teacher, and Art Department Chair at Berwick, had
this to say about the impact of Whipple Art Center:
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