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Portraits, Pastels, Prints: Whistler in The Frick Collection 
June 2 through August 23, 2009

	The London Steroscopic Company, photograph of James McNeill Whistler, c. 1879, Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was a painter, printmaker, draftsman, and designer. Having left the United States in 1855 at the age of twenty-one, he lived primarily in London with periods in Paris. Over the course of his career, he maintained a colorful public persona as a dandy, wit, and occasional polemicist, capturing the attention of the press and the admiration of diverse patrons.

He became a leading proponent of Aestheticism, a set of principles centering on the belief in art’s autonomous value apart from any moral or didactic purpose. Whistler prized harmonious form, color, and composition and condemned pure imitation of nature — paving the way for twentieth-century abstraction.

Introduction to the Exhibition

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

The Paintings
Whistler's Working Method

Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean
Podcast | Video

Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland
Podcast | Video

Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder
Podcast | Video

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux
Podcast | Video

Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac
Podcast | Video

Pastels and Prints: Whistler in Venice
Pastels
Etchings

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