Person    | Male  Born 14/7/1834  Died 17/7/1903

James McNeill Whistler

Categories: Art, Seriously Famous

Countries: Russia, USA

Painter and printmaker, born in Worthen Street, Lowell, Massachussetts. His family moved to Russia in 1843 and he received his first formal art instruction at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, St Petersburg. Returning to America he learned the technique of etching as a navy cartographer. After studies in France he settled in London in 1859. Among his prolific works the most famous is probably 'Arrangement in Grey and Black' - better known as 'Whistler's Mother'. The lady herself, Anna, lived around the corner in Chelsea and proudly looked after him, while he carefully shielded her from a full understanding of the disreputable life that he was leading, such as the illegitimate son by a chambermaid.

Starting in the 1860s he seems to have developed a strong relationship with the colour white, painting a series of women dressed in white, possibly inspired by 'The Woman in White', 1859, by Wilkie Collins, buildings a white house, wearing only white and owning white dogs.

A dandy and a wit, when a fan told him that he and Velasquez were the only two painters worthy of note he replied 'why drag in Velasquez?' And when Oscar Wilde said to him, 'I wish I had said that', he is supposed to have replied 'You will Oscar, you will!'. Oscar would say of Whistler that he always spelt Art with a capital I, and so their friendship changed to animosity over time.

Whistler's autobiography was titled 'The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' and he does seem to have been quite an unpleasant character but endlessly quotable. His reaction to accidentally shooting his host's dog was to declare "It was a dog without artistic habits and had placed itself badly in relation to the landscape." "Art for art's sake", indeed. Whistler died in London at 74 Cheyne Walk, which he had leased in 1902.

Spitalfields Life's post 'Whistler In The East End' has some exquisite drawings.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
James McNeill Whistler

Commemorated ati

Cross Keys pub

But not Dickens?

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James McNeill Whistler

A charming old plaque, erected only 22 years after the artist's death.

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James McNeill Whistler statue

After Whistler's death, the Chelsea Arts Club proposed that Auguste Rodin sho...

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Other Subjects

Reeves & Sons Ltd

Reeves & Sons Ltd

Artists' colour manufacturer. Established by William Reeves (1739–1803). It has had a number of names, always including "Reeves" until ownership passed to Wilhelm Becker, through Colart Fine Art an...

Group, Art, Commerce, Industry

1 memorial
T. A. Greeves

T. A. Greeves

Architect and artist. Born Thomas Affleck Greeves. Studied at the Cambridge School of Architecture, but never actually designed any functional buildings. Instead he produced a series of fantastical...

Person, Architecture, Art

1 memorial
George Baxter

George Baxter

Artist and craftsman. Born Lewes. 1825 moved to London and married his cousin Mary Harrild. He invented a commercially viable colour printing process, producing prints of religious and topical subj...

Person, Art, Commerce, Craft / Design, Tragedy

3 memorials
Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle

Artist and cartoonist. Born Cambridge and studied art. In WW2 at the start of 1942 he was in the Royal Engineers in Singapore which fell to the Japanese and he was taken prisoner and spent the rest...

Person, Art

1 memorial
William Cleverly Alexander

William Cleverly Alexander

A wealthy banker and art collector, who bought Aubrey House in 1873 for about £15,000. He was an important patron of Whistler. He died when he fell down the stairs of his country home Heathfield Ho...

Person, Art, Benefactor

1 memorial