[4][5] Planning a career as an army doctor, Whitten entered pre-medical studies at Tuskegee Institute from 1957 to 1959.

[1] In 1960, Whitten went to Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to begin studying art[6] and became involved in Civil Rights demonstrations there.

[4][6] Afterwards, he remained in New York as a working artist, heavily influenced by the abstract expressionists then dominating the art community, especially Willem de Kooning[9] and Romare Bearden.

[7] Shortly after graduating from Cooper Union, Whitten had the opportunity to meet other Black artists, including Jacob Lawrence and Norman Lewis, while he remained in New York to start his art career.

At times he pursued quickly-applied gestural techniques akin to photography or printmaking, while at others his deliberate and constructive hand is evident.

When the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center occurred, Whitten was at his studio on Lispenard Street in Tribeca.

[18] In 2013, curator Katy Siegel organized the exhibition Light Years: Jack Whitten, 1971-73 at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

[25] In 2018, the retrospective exhibition Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture 1963–2016 was organized around the time of his passing and opened at the Baltimore Museum of Art from April 22, 2018, to July 29, 2018.

In 2025, the Museum of Modern Art presented Jack Whitten: The Messenger, opening from March 23 to August 2.