Mr. White was born in Cranfield, Mississippi. After minimal education, he worked as a porter on boats plying the Mississippi River between Natchez and New Orleans. He settled in New Orleans when he was 19, finding work as a porter and a barber. During this period, Mr. White met some artists from New York and saw this guy's paintings and started querying this guy about it. Mr. White decided he'd start doing his own paintings by using marker on poster board. Mr. White would hang his art work out on his porch on Dryades Street, and people would drive by and buy them for a few dollars apiece. Because his palette was limited to the colors of markers he could buy at a nearby drugstore with his Social Security checks in New Orleans, where he has now lived for many years until his death. Mr. White's inspiration is television images and movies of distant places. With simple shapes and bold colors drawn in bright markers on poster board, he paints a variety of subjects: prehistoric creatures, strange animals, and birds; the earth, moon, and stars; religious images, houses, cactuses. Works by Mr. White have been shown at the New Orleans Museum of Art and in other Louisiana shows. Mr. White was very much recognized by Mr. Hemphill, Jr. as a leading American Folk Art Artist.