Whitfield Lovell (born October 2, 1959) is a contemporary African-American artist who is known primarily for his drawings of African-American individuals from the first half of the 20th century. Lovell creates these drawings in pencil, oil stick, or charcoal on paper, wood, or directly on walls. In his most recent work, these drawings are paired with found objects that Lovell collects at flea markets and antique shops.

Born October 2, 1959 in the Bronx, New York to the former Gladys Glover, an elementary school teacher from South Carolina, and Whitfield McAllister "Allister" Lovell, a postal clerk and photographer of Barbadian descent. Whitfield Lovell grew up in the Bronx and attended The High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. During high school, he also participated in a variety of extracurricular art programs: the Metropolitan Museum of Art High School Program, the Whitney Museum Art Resources Center, the New York State Summer School for the Arts in Fredonia, New York, and the Cooper Union Saturday Program.

In 1977, Lovell traveled to Spain to study painting and sculpture with Manhattanville College. At El Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, he decided that he would become a painter. Lovell has said:

"I knew I would go into some form of art, but I wasn't sure which. I was interested in fashion and advertising as options. But while I was standing in front of a Velasquez painting I had an amazing spiritual experience. The painter had communicated with me through centuries and cultures, and I suddenly understood the role of the artist. I ran from room to room. Goya, El Greco, Reubens, and Picasso all began to speak out to me. Whatever they were doing in those rooms was what I wanted to do with my life."

Lovell spent a year at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore in 1977 before traveling in France, Germany, Italy, England, Austria and the Netherlands with the American Institute For Foreign Study in 1978. When he returned to New York, he enrolled in the Fine Arts Department of the Parsons School of Design and then The Cooper Union School of Art, from which he graduated in 1981. In 1982, Lovell traveled to Egypt, Nigeria, and the Republic of Benin, West Africa.

In 1985, Lovell attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he reconsidered the nature of his own work:

"In Skowhegan I had time to really think about what I wanted to do with my work. I felt the formal issues about color were fighting with the narratives I was getting at ... So I narrowed down the color, and began to work monochromatically. I had all of my father's old photographs mailed to me, and I began a process of looking through these images each day before starting to work. The work became more personal and a reflection of the way I saw myself as an artist."

This practice, using old photographs as inspiration and source material, has stayed with Whitfield to this day.