In Tate Britain
Walk Through British Art: 1840
Free entry
In Tate Britain
Prints and Drawings Rooms
View by AppointmentBiography
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for it combined both aspects of his personality—his art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting is Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother, the revered and oft-parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers.
This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. Spotted a problem? Let us know.
Read full Wikipedia entryArtworks
Artist as subject
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, recipient: Elizabeth Forbes Letter from Stanhope Forbes to Elizabeth Armstrong, addressed 11 Elgin Avenue, London
27 April 1887
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, recipient: Elizabeth Forbes Letter from Stanhope Forbes to Elizabeth Armstrong, addressed 11 Elgin Avenue, London
13 April 1888
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, recipient: Elizabeth Forbes Letter from Stanhope Forbes to Elizabeth Armstrong
7 April 1888
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed 26 Red Lion Square, London
[August–September 1915]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands
[c.July–August 1915]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed The Lodge, Entry Hill, Bath
[c.1918]
Film and audio
Podcast
Walks of art: Dolly Alderton on Monet and the Thames
The writer and journalist wanders along the river and explores its hidden depths
Watch
This is Britain: Vivienne Westwood
This is Britain: The Home of British Art. Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood takes us on a personal tour of Tate ...
Features
Art Term
British impressionism
British impressionism describes the work of artists working in Britain in the late nineteenth-century who were influenced by the ideas ...
Art Term
Luminism
Luminism means roughly, the painting of light and is applied specifically to the American landscape painters of the Hudson River ...
Art Term
Tone
The lightness or darkness of something – this could be a shade, or how dark or light a colour appears
Art Term
Aesthetic movement
The aesthetic movement was a late nineteenth century movement that championed pure beauty and ‘art for art’s sake’ emphasising the ...
Art Term
Japonisme
Japonisme is a French term coined in the late nineteenth century to describe the craze for Japanese art and design ...
Read
People behind the pictures - Painting with Light
In the early years of photography, photographers and painters collaborated, borrowed and shared ideas, ushering in a period of innovation ...
Read
Forgotten Faces
Forgotten Faces comprises seventeen portraits or figure paintings and three sculptures ranging between 1896 – a year before the foundation of ...
Tate Etc
The deliberate accident in art: Blots
Ever since Leonardo da Vinci urged artists to search for inspiration in the dirt on walls or the streaked patterns ...
Tate Papers
Listening for the Sublime: Aural-Visual Improvisations in Nineteenth-Century Musical Art
Music’s capacity to expose the contradictions which emerged within late nineteenth-century understandings of the sublime is explored in relation ...
Tate Etc
Art for fiction's sake: The art of writing
In the Studio: Will Self tracks the ever-changing relationship between the literary and visual arts from John Keats to J ...
You might like
William Holman Hunt
1827–1910
George Vicat Cole
1833–1893
Frederic, Lord Leighton
1830–1896
William Maw Egley
1826–1916
Albert Moore
1841–1893
Charles Napier Hemy
1841–1917
Frederick Walker
1840–1875
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt
1829–1896
Walter Greaves
1846–1930
Edwin Edwards
1823–1879
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
1828–1882
Frederick Sandys
1829–1904
Sir William Blake Richmond
1842–1921
George Frederic Watts
1817–1904
George Henry Boughton
1833–1905