Beatrice Whitney Van Ness (1888–1981) was an American painter. Born Beatrice Whitney in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Van Ness studied with Frank Weston Benson, Bela Lyon Pratt, Philip Hale, and Edmund Charles Tarbell, among others. Formerly a pupil at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she received a scholarship from that organization in 1908 and joined its faculty two years later. Around 1909 she took summer classes with Charles H. Woodbury, who would go on to become a mentor for many years. Whitney had an early success with Odalisque, shown at the National Academy of Design in 1914, which won awards both there and at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and was later bought by William Merritt Chase. In 1921 she founded the art department of Beaver Country Day School in Ches