John White (art historian)

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Prof. John Edward Clement Twarowski White is an English former art historian and was formerly the head of the Department of History of Art at the University College London (UCL). John White is also the author of a number of books on Medieval and Renaissance art, as well as on the artist Duccio of Siena. White was a pupil of Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, after World War II, and has a number of mentions in Blunt's biography.

White went straight from Ampleforth school to the Royal Air Force, where he became a Spitfire flying instructor based in Canada. After the war he came back to the United Kingdom and became a student of Anthony Blunt, keeper of the Queen's art collection and subsequently exposed as a Russian spy. White went from the Courtauld Institute to Cambridge and then on to an academic career which included the Art History department at Johns Hopkins University.

John White is also a poet with a number of volumes to his credit, including a book of English poems translated into Japanese and published in Japan called The Breath in the Flute. Although not a Buddhist, he has had a long association with a Buddhist temple, the Shogioji Temple, a Shin Buddhist (Pure Land) Temple in southern Japan, as well as a branch of the temple, Three Wheels, in London.

Now in his 80s, John White is a glider pilot, having taken up gliding 50 years after he last piloted a Spitfire. He flies at Dunstable and holds the diamond certificate for glider pilots, having completed 500 km and 25.000 in altitude (he achieved this after his 80th birthday). He is currently living in London.