Peter and Catharine Whyte

Peter and Catharine Whyte were twentieth-century Canadian artists from Banff, Alberta known for their landscape paintings of the Canadian Rockies. Their paintings and extensive collection of regional artifacts formed the genesis of what would later become the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies. The Alpine Club of Canada dedicated the Peter and Catharine Whyte Hut on the Peyto Glacier after the couple.

Peter Whyte was born on January 22, 1905 in Banff, Alberta, Canada, the son of Dave White, a dry goods merchant from Banff who once worked as a Canadian Pacific Railway section man at Sawback, near Banff. Peter's mother, Annie Curren White, was the daughter of John Donaldson Curren, who worked as a coal scout and painter. Dave White developed friendships with some of the traveling Stoney Indians, whose ancient hunting trail ran near White's Sawback section house.

Growing up in Banff, Peter enjoyed various outdoor activities and sports, including skiing, hiking, and horseback riding. He also showed an interest in art, and soon learned to paint from local artists. The rugged beauty of the mountains and the larch-filled valleys inspired him to sketch and paint the world around him. He eventually considered painting as a career. Belmore Browne, an outdoorsman and painter, and Nora Drummond-Davis, an illustrator, provided Peter with private lessons in painting and illustration.

Peter learned landscape techniques from studying the work of Belmore Browne, Aldro T. Hibbard, Carl Rungius, and the Group of Seven painter J. E. H. MacDonald. MacDonald visited Lake O'Hara in 1924 and returned every year to paint. Peter accompanied MacDonald on many of his outings, painting alongside the famous artist. In 1925, Peter painted with Aldro T. Hibbard, who encouraged him to enroll at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was here in 1925 that Peter Whyte first met Catharine Robb.

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