John White(academic)

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Prof. J E C T (John) White Former Head of the Department of History of Art John White is the author of a number of books on Mediaeval and Renaissance art at UCL (University College London)and an artist of the period, Duccio of Sienna. John White was a pupil of Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld Inwstitute after WW2 and has a number of mentions in the Anthony Blunt biography. He 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 UK and became a student under Sir Anthony Blunt, keeper of the queen's art collection and subsequently exposed as a Russian spy.(And stripped of his title) John White went from the Courtauld to Cambridge and then on to an academic career which included the Art History department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. Now in his 80's 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. John White is 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 in Southern Japan and a branch of the temple, Three Wheels, in London. He lives in London, remains healthy and lives life to the full.