James McNeill Whistler and the Romance of Great Cities

Made possible by
Wege Foundation

October 2, 2009-January 10, 2010

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts and educated at West Point Academy, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) left America in 1855 to become a truly international artist. He made his home in London, with frequent trips to Paris and other European capitals. In an era of tourism, Whistler traveled with sketchbooks. He produced both prints and paintings that captured the romance of quiet streets, teeming avenues, and grand vistas in the cities of London, Venice and Paris.

In doing so, he was taking a cue from critic Charles Baudelaire's 1859 suggestion that artists should depict the modern world around them, including "the landscape of great cities...the profound and complex charm of a capital city which has grown old and aged in the glories and tribulations of life." An accomplished printmaker, Whistler utilized etching and lithography to depict city scenes in his own distinctive style.

London was the subject of Whistler's earliest urban views, dating from 1859. His etchings of scenes along the Thames River depicted merchants, fishermen and their docks, all of which would soon give way to construction of the Embankment. In Venice during 1879 and 1880 Whistler's style changed. His etchings, with their broken lines and tonal effects, became more suggestive and his work captured an aspect of Venice that he described as, "never previously perceived." In Paris in the 1890s, Whistler utilized the process of transfer lithography to create spontaneous and intimate impressions of storefronts, public buildings, and the Luxembourg Gardens.

James McNeill Whistler and the Romance of Great Cities includes more than forty etchings and lithographs dating from 1859 to 1896 drawn from the collection of Joan Winchell.