Sculptor Daniel Whetstone Dies at 50; Service Pending

A memorial service is pending for Daniel Whetstone, a widely known Omaha sculptor.

Whetstone, 50, died of cancer Wednesday at his rural home north of Omaha.

Born in Omaha, Whetstone graduated from Omaha Technical High School. He attended classes at University of Omaha, the Omaha Art School and Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California.

He studied under Gordon Newell, a nationally renowned sculptor, at the Sculpture Center in Monterey.

“Dan was kind of unusual or a sculptor in Nebraska in that he preferred to use marble,” said Norman Geske of Lincoln, former curator at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln. “His work was mostly abstract and semi-abstract. He was a home-bred guy who was very modest and low-key. He was very talented, although he probably wasn’t that well-known outside of Nebraska.”

He also worked with steel and bronze. Whetstone did most of his work from a studio at the family farm north of Omaha.

Whetstone held solo exhibitions at Dana College in Blair, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum and Haydon Art Museum in Lincoln. Sculptures by Whetstone are on display at Sheldon and the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney.

Survivors include his wife, Pattie; mother and stepfather, Genevieve and Harold Dowler of Omaha, and brother, James, who lives in England.

~~~from obituaries courtesy of the Washington County, Nebraska Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Public Library, Blair, Nebraska ~~~

FindaGrave # 214103821