Jon Whiteley

Jon Whiteley

Jon Whiteley (born 19 February 1945 in Monymusk, Scotland) is a former child actor and art historian. Whiteley appeared in five films during his brief acting career, and it was for the second of these, The Kidnappers (US: The Little Kidnappers, 1953) that he, along with co-star Vincent Winter, was awarded an Academy Juvenile Award for this film. He appeared in only three more films, including The Spanish Gardener (1956), before his film acting career was effectively put on hold when his mother insisted on him passing the Eleven plus exam. After appearing twice more for TV credits, his acting career ended. Whiteley is now a respected art historian at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. He wrote his doctorate on the French painter Paul Delaroche. He has catalogued all the French Drawings in the Ashmolean, and authored and co-authored several books on artists including Ingres, Puvis de Chavannes and Claude Lorrain. He published a book on the Ashmolean's Stringed Instruments in 2009, and is working on a catalogue of the later French paintings in the Museum.

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