Orca Bates (born 1976) was the favorite model for artist Jamie Wyeth.[1][2] He was first painted in late 1989, and numerous times over the next five years.[3] Orca was a "wild child",[4][5] described by Jamie as "more of a seagull than a person".[6] Orca's parents, Daniel and Amy Bates, had divorced by the time Orca was 12. Both remarried and continued to live on Manana Island (adjacent to Monhegan island, about 10 miles [16 km] off Pemaquid Point on the mainland), where they were neighbors of Jamie Wyeth. Orca and his younger sister, Kila, split their time between the two households.[7]
Orca currently lives in Pine Island, New York. He married Colleen Dougherty in 2011.[8] Orca's younger half-brother, Cat Bates (born 1986), also modeled for Jamie Wyeth in 1995.[9]
Wyeth's paintings of Orca Bates include:
Anderson, Cindy, "A Portrait of Orca Bates", Yankee, Vol. 60, No. 9, Sept. 1996, pp. 54–127