The daughter of well-known water colorist John Whorf, she painted portraits, still lives, landscapes and scenes of Cape Cod in oil most often with a palette knife.

She was born on March 14, 1930, to John and Vivian Whorf of Winthrop, Massachusetts and studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School in 1949, briefly with Vollian Rann in Provincetown in 1950, and with her father. She first tried watercolors but then found and developed her own style by switching to oils and the palette knife. She loved to travel but only painted Provincetown, where she lived most of her life and raised her three daughters with husband David Kelly.

She had many solo shows at the Berta Walker Gallery and was featured in a retrospective at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in 2001, as well as a Whorf generations show at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis. (Her daughter Julia is also an artist).

Nancy Whorf died on Thursday, June 18, 2009 in Sanford, Florida, where she had moved in her later years to be closer to her daughters.

Sources include:
Obituary. Provincetown Banner, June 29, 2009
Who Was Who in American Art