James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903), Painter and etcherSitter in 15 portraits
Artist associated with 4 portraits
Born in America, Whistler originally trained to be a soldier at West Point, before studying painting in Paris and moving to London around 1860, where he remained. An advocate of the aesthetic ideal of 'Art for Art's Sake', and all-round provocative figure of the London art world, his nocturnes (which he described as ‘arrangement[s] of line, form and colour first’ and were famously criticised by John Ruskin for representing the equivalent of 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face') and decorative subjects made him a progressive and controversial figure.
after William Brassey Hole, after James Abbott McNeill Whistler
reproduction of etching, late 19th century (circa 1872)
NPG D1400
by Percy Thomas, after James Abbott McNeill Whistler
etching, 1874
NPG D4997
published by The Medici Society Ltd, after James Abbott McNeill Whistler
chromolithograph, published 1911
NPG D32683
Anna McNeill Whistler ('Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother')
published by The Medici Society Ltd, after James Abbott McNeill Whistler
chromolithograph, published 1912 (1871)
NPG D37559
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