Biography: Matthew Whitworth, who was born in Little Rock but spent most of his life on the East Coast and in the Midwest, died in his Minneapolis, Minnesota home on January 17. He was 55.

Matthew had recently become the Operations Manager of ARTISTRY, a prominent center for theater and visual arts in
Minneapolis.

Matthew is survived by his father, William Whitworth, of Little Rock; his sister, Katherine Whitworth Stewart (Shea), of Oxford, MS; his aunt, Sandra Hubbard, of Fayetteville; three cousins -- John Roberts (Tamara) and Scott Roberts (Cathey), of Fayetteville, and Jason Roberts (Angelica), of Little Rock; his former wife, Kimberly Kulseng, of Brooklyn, NY; his loving friend Teresa Walsh, of Minneapolis, MN; and his beloved cat, Mojo.

Matthew's aunt Sandra is a professional photographer and documentarian, and his late mother, Carolyn Hubbard Whitworth, of Little Rock, was a photography hobbyist, so it wasn't surprising that Matthew shared this interest from the time he was big enough to point a single-lens reflex 35 mm camera at a neighbor's dog.

The hobby took hold, and when Matthew graduated from the State University of New York at Purchase, he began a career in art photography at the Janet Borden Gallery in New York.

In 2015, Matthew became associate director of another prominent art-photography gallery in New York, the Yancey Richardson Gallery. At both galleries, Matthew managed art fairs, assisted the artists, and also worked with clients interested in collecting.

Ms. Richardson recently said of Matthew, "He had an excellent eye for what makes a great photograph. The artists recognized that and responded to it. They need an enthusiastic supporter and thoughtful editor, just like writers."

When Matthew and his sister, Katherine, were children, the family lived in New York, where his father was an editor at The New Yorker magazine. Asked several years ago to recall those days, Matthew said:

"When I was a young boy growing up in New York City, my favorite places to visit, besides the Museum of Natural History, were the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, the latter most likely because I had dreams of skateboarding down it. I liked looking at the paintings and sculptures and roaming around the great spaces.

"I went to school with Michael Stella, the son of the artist Frank Stella. He would invite me over and we'd hang out. His father had some of his own large-scale paintings installed in their house as well as several in progress downstairs in the studio. I thought they were pretty cool, but not as much as the scale-model train sets he had been working on.”

Matthew was a devoted caretaker of stray cats; in lieu of flowers or gifts, please make donations to The American Street Cat or your favorite local animal rescue organization.