His gifts to The Menil Collection and its archives formed the foundation for Jasper Johns’ catalogue raisonne. Upon his death, in addition to his bequest to the Trust for Historic Preservation, he bequeathed forty-four artworks to The Menil Collection which included a significant collection of 17 drawings by Jasper Johns, as well as his art library from his New York apartment and his curatorial papers that consisted of engagement notebooks, artist and exhibition files on David Salle, Franz Kline, Michael Heizer, Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns his exhibitions at Art Museum of South Texas Corpus Christi and files about Green Gallery, New York, dating from 1960–1997. But they weren’t then.” However, from a historical perspective, this attests to his keen eye for emerging talent, as well as his deep understanding of and appreciation for the creative mind and artistic expression. Whitney described the development of these relationships simply as “I became close to these people who are now all gods. Whitney’s circle of friends included Modern masters such as Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Frank Gehry, Frank Stella, Ken Price, among others. In contrast to his outspoken partner of forty-five years, Philip Johnson, Whitney was an éminence grise, an art world insider who preferred to maintain his privacy.
Although Philip Johnson’s biographer Franz Schulze referred to him as a “wife” and he identified himself as the homemaker, David Grainger Whitney was an accomplished curator and editor, an avid art collector and gardener, a loyal friend to many artists, an art adviser to New York’s powerful elite, and an advocate of contemporary art.
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