Frank Whipple, born and living in Los Angeles, is a self taught collage and assemblage artist working primarily with vintage books and papers sourced from early to mid 20th century advertising ephemera, antique photographs and engravings, and other well seasoned bits of memorabilia from his vast collection.  He hand cuts and shapes the antique images into intricate forms that are arranged into compositions that correspond to his lifelong interest in science fiction and fantasy literature and film, creating a surrealist mythology partly derived from dreams and the unconscious.

Having been a dealer in used and rare books for many years, Whipple’s collages originally began with recycling damaged books, photos and other ephemera, building new compositions using the images found in the materials.  The items, having lost most of their utilitarian value with the passage of time, regain purpose as abstract works of art, creating beauty from the archaic and discarded. 

Whipple usually begins by compiling an assortment of a few hundred or more individual elements culled from his collection.  He commits to work on a new collage when one of the images suggests something to him, or perhaps when a background image stimulates his interest due to its texture, the decay of the paper, or even a water stain or blemish, and sometimes by virtue of something as subtle as a fine line of ink bleeding color over from one area of a printed image to another, as was often the case in the older printing techniques in use prior to the digital age of magazine and book publishing.

The first exhibit that included one of Whipple’s collages was a 1995 group collage show (Pasted Papers: Collage in the 20th Century) at the Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery in West Hollywood curated by Art Critic Peter Frank and Louis Stern.  He has also exhibited at numerous galleries in Southern California; Santa Rosa in Northern California; and Santa Fe, New Mexico; his works have also been utilized for film sets (NCIS tv show) as well as a couple of record cover designs for local Los Angeles bands.