 He married fellow artist Frances Wood in 1959, and studied as a mature student at the Royal Academy Schools from 1962 to 1966.Whitaker won the Mark Rothko Memorial Award in 1973 at the recommendation of Bridget Riley, which allowed him to work in the U.S. for several months.He then taught at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, helping to oversee the school's merger with the University of Oxford, before becoming a lecturer at the Wimbledon College of Art in 1984, retiring in 2001.