Parky At the Pictures (15/9/2026)

(Review of Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler)

It's been a while since the last Exhibition on Screen offering, but the wait has been worthwhile, as David Bickerstaff's James McNeill Whistler is a fine addition to an invaluable series. Inspired by the acclaimed retrospective due to end soon at Tate Britain, this is the fourth feature to focus on an American artist, after Hopper: An American Love Story (2022), Mary Cassatt: Painting the Modern Woman (2023), and John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger (2024) followed on from The Artist's Garden: American Impressionism (2017).

Introductory remarks by Carol Jacobi, the curator of the Tate exhibition; Susan Grace Galsassi, Curator Emeritus at The Frick Collection; and art historian Stephen Calloway fix James McNeill Whistler as a distinctive figure on the art scenes in London and Paris, who had decided opinions on the form and value of art. Critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston concludes her typically incisive overview by quoting a limerick by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was one of the many people with whom the American expat would fall out during the course of his life:

There's a combative artist named Whistler,

Who is, like his own hog-hairs, a bristler:

A tube of white lead

And a punch on the head

Offered varied attractions to Whistler.

As we see `Gold and Brown, Self-Portrait' (c.1896-98), Galassi suggests that Whistler's fashion sense and readiness to provoke made him a work of art in his own right. Over `The Artist in His Studio' (1865-66), Jacobi posits that his Americanism made him an outsider who was forever questioning modern life, while `The Artist in His Studio' (c.1864-95) and Émile-François Dessai's pastel miniature, `Portrait of J. McNeill Whistler and His Brother William' (1847), accompany a press release in which the painter reminds everyone of his origins and claims his birthplace as Baltimore, because he it didn't suit him to have been born in Lowell, Massachusetts on 10 July 1834.

Jacobi notes that Whistler was a great self-mythologist, who liked people to think he was from Southern aristocracy. But, as art historian Patricia De Montfort reveals over George Harding's portrait of `George Washington Whistler', his father was a railway engineer who took his family to Russia in the 1840s after he had been hired to construct a line from St Petersburg to Moscow by Tsar Nicholas I. Here, the young Whistler took lessons with Alexander Koritsky and we see glorious pages from his sketchbook, as well as `Self-Portrait' (1845-46). He also spent time in London with brother-in-law Francis Seymour Haden, a doctor with a keen interest in art and photography. An accomplished etcher (seen in a self-portrait), Haden also had a collection of Old Master prints and Whistler studied these in earnest.

However, Whistler's father died of cholera at the age of 49 and the family had to return Stateside. He attended the West Point Military Academy, where he learned to draw and etch. As Campbell-Johnston avers, he didn't take army life seriously, but produced sketches like `Counsel of War' (c.1849-51) and `Anacapa Island' (1854), while the landscape sketches made during his time with the Coastal Survey are striking. However, Henri Murger's La Vie Bohème (1851) convinced him that he needed to be free to pursue his artistic ambitions and he left for Paris in 1855, never to return to the United States.

As we see `Self-Portrait of Whistler With a Hat' (1858), Campbell-Johnston discusses how he fell in with Gustave Courbet, the pioneering realist artist known for his studies of rural life. Whistler, however, was more intrigued by urban subjects like `The Unsafe Tenement' (1858) and the can-can dancer, Finette, who he sketched in 1859. Fascinated by the seedy side of city life, he experimented with realism in drawings like `Scene From Bohemian Life' (1855-57) and `Venus' (1859) and his competitive friendship is reflected in `Self-Portrait Smoking' (1856-60), which showed him with a cigarette to parellel the pipe that Courbet often included in his self-portraits.

In this period, Whistler sought ordinary people like the elderly flower seller in `La Mère Gérard' (1858-59) and Campbell-Johnston sees the influence of Diego Velázquez in `Head of an Old Man Smoking' (c.1859). Jacobi points to the influence of Charles Baudelaire, who wanted art to reflect the `heroism of life', and this can be seen in sketches like `Whistler in a Hat' (1859), which dates from the period when he was getting to know the artists who would become the Impressionists. He struggled for money around this time and `Au Sixième' formed part of a collection entitled, Twelve Etchings From Nature (1859).

Calloway explains how Whistler liked to make his own prints, such as `En Plein Air' (1859), which he believed were small pieces of art in themselves. But he was still putting his own spin on realism with paintings like `At the Piano' (1858-59), which depicted half-sister Deborah Haden playing the instrument that had belonged to his father and which his mother had shipped to London. He considered this a step forward, as well as a personal work. But the critics considered it `a sketch' and Whistler left Paris in a huff.

He was soon writing to painter Henri Fantin-Latour to inform him that he had found his new home and Calloway confirms that Whistler became obsessed with the Thames and he was proud of the way he reproduced the vessels in `Wapping' (1861). This also contained an image of Joanna Hiffernan, the redheaded Irish model who would become his mistress and Jacobi compares the image to Édouard Manet's `Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (1862-63), which she considers less audacious in its disinclination to tell a story. Even Chelsea had its rough side when Whistler moved there and Campbell-Johnston points out the lowlife characters who caught his eye in sketches like `The Pool' and `Limehouse' (both 1859), while both `The Last of Old Westminster' (1862) and `Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge' (1859-63) capture the changing face of the riverbank, which he got to know while being rowed around by artist siblings Walter and Henry Greaves.

Over `Self-Portrait' (1870-75), Calloway distances the Aesthetic Movement from Pre-Raphaelitism, as the new group resisted looking back to the past in celebrating `art for art's sake'. Whistler sought to work with colour and shape in `Symphony in White No.3' (1865-67) and `Three Figures: Pink and Grey' (1868-78). The former again featured Joanna Hiffernan, the lover-cum-agent who posed for `Jo, La Belle Irlaindaise' (1865-66), as well as `Symphony in White, No.1: The White Girl' (1860) and `Symphony in White, No.2: The Little White Girl' (1864). Campbell-Johnston notes the growing influence of Japanese art, as Whistler sought a simpler style. She also refers to the musical references in so many pictures, as we see `Harmony in Flesh Colour and Red' (c.1869) and `Variations in Violet and Green' (1871), which Whistler wanted onlookers to view for its artistry not its subject matter.

Tate Britain hung `Portrait of William McNeill Whistler' (1871-73) and `Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of the Painter' (1871) on either side of their mother in the iconic `Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1' (1871), which Campbell-Johnston calls the `Mona Lisa of the Victorian era'. She tells how the doting Alice Mathilde McNeill Whistler had stood in for a model who had failed to show up and her son presented her as the epitome of stoical calmness, an image that came to mean so much to Americans during the Great Depression. Jacobi highlights the look of concentration on Alice's face and the delicacy with which Whistler painted her skin. She claims that he was as much a psychologist as an artist, as he always captured personality, as well as likeness.

Leaving London, we join Susan Grace Galassi at The Frick Collection to consider the meticulous care that Whistler took over portraits like `Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder' (1876-78) and `Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1891-92). Corder got bored with posing, but Whistler persuaded Montesquiou to stay by promising to immortalise him (`Look at me a moment longer and you will look forever.').

Galassi explains how Whistler would have the canvas framed as he worked so that he would know how the finished image would sit and she reveals that his restless method of looking and leaping back behind the easel to apply paint earned him the nickname in some quarters of `The Fencer'. He was besotted with the sitter of `Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland' (1870-73) and sought to combine a homage to her with a summation of his ideas on beauty. The Japanese influence is strong in the background, while the gown he designed for her echoes the Pre-Raphaelites. Even the frame was part of the `total environment', as the checkerboard pattern on the wood matched the design of the carpet.

By contrast, `Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux' (1881-82) was a commission by the former actress, Valerie Susan Langdon, who had married well. She was not an intimate part of his circle, but he placed her in front of a curtain so give the impression she was standing proudly on stage, which was perhaps a riposte to those who had not welcomed her to high society.

Back in Blighty, Campbell-Johnston discloses that Whistler painted around 40 full-length portraits, as they were the best way to attract wealthy patrons. However, the teenage sitter of `Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander' (1870-72) deeply resented standing for over 70 sessions and he captures the look of resentment in her face. As Jacobi reveals, her sister refused to put up with the sittings for `Miss May Alexander' (1874-75), which was left unfinished.

De Montfort discusses Whistler's unusual relationships with women, as he chose strong partners to help with his work, but didn't marry either Jo Hiffernan or Maud Franklin, herself an artist who is seen in `Pink Note - The Novelette' (1880-83), as well as in the portraits, `Arrangement in Yellow and Grey: Effie Deans' (1876-79) and `Arrangement in Black and Brown: The Fur Jacket' (1877). In the latter picture, the skirt was left as raw primed canvas, as Whistler had opted against brushtrokes, but allowed drips of paint to convey the texture and flow of the skirt.

As we see a photo of Whistler's rooms at 74 Cheyne Walk, Calloway observes that he didn't have a cluttered studio like most contemportaries. His spaces were ordered and full of collected Japanese prints and blue-and-white china. He depicted the latter in `Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks' (1864), which he told Fantin-Latour about in an enthusiastic letter that stresses the difficulties inherent in being innovative.

We head next to the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC to learn rom Diana Greenwold about founder Charles Lang Freer, who became Whistler's most important patron in the USA. She comments on the Japanese influence on `Variations in Flesh Colour and Green: The Balcony' (1864-73), in which he flattened the space and used big blocks of colour. He even put the sitter into a kimono in `Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen' (1864). Such was his desire to control every facet of the image that he extended this to his completion of Thomas Jeckyll's design for The Peacock Room (1876-77) in shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland's London town house at 49 Prince's Gate. Whistler had already painted the portrait, `Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F.R. Leyland' (1870-73), and he was trusted to finish the room that also contained his own `Rose and Silver: The Princess From the Land of Porcelain' (1863-65). However, Whistley disliked the16th-century cuir de Cordoue wall hangings that had come to London as part of Catherine of Aragon's dowry. So, he painted over them in turquoise and gold and also applied peacock motifs to the shutters.

He held a party in the room in Leyland's absence so that friends could admire his labours. The tycoon was unamused when he saw what Whistler had done and ordered him in a terse exchange of letters to put it right. But the artist produced a mural depicting fighting peacocks, which he dubbed, `Art and Money: or, The Story of the Room'. In revenge, Leyland met only half the agreed sum and paid in pounds not guineas, the coinage of a tradesman rather than a gentleman. Freer bought the room after Leyland's death in 1904 and had it installed in his Detroit mansion, from whence it was relocated to the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

Once more returning to the Tate, we see `Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge' (c.1872-75) and `Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea' (1872), as De Montfort detects a move away from fine detail to a suggestive images. Campbell-Johnston reveals that he wanted such views to resemble breath on a pane of glass and she feels he achieved his end to perfection. Over 'Crepuscule in Pink and Green: Valparaiso' (1865), De Montfort opines that the sensory took precedence over the visual (although no mention is made of why Whistler went to Chile at this stage of his career). She also mentions his use of house-painting brushes to get the dabbed on effect he sought in images like `Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Southampton Water' (1872). Calloway claims this was borderline abstraction a decade before the Impressionists did the same thing, as Whistler experimented with line, shape, and colour.

As the exhibition was planned four years in advance, Jacobi launched a conservation project called `Whistler's Finish', which aimed to study his decision making when it came to applying paint. Conservator Rachel Scott explains how he came to use fewer colours in later years and critics claimed that pieces like `Nocturne: Black and Gold - The Fire Wheel' (1875) were unfinished. Gabriella Macaro alludes to Whistler's fondness for Cremorne Gardens, as she describes how the painting was restored and how items within the composition were discovered.

An extract from `The Red Rag', an essay in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890), leads into Calloway's account of the libel trial Whistler fought with critic John Ruskin over the Fors Clavigera review of `Nocturne in Black and Gold - The Falling Rocket' (c.1875), which included the line, `I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.' He won the case, but only received a farthing in compensation, with the court costs contributing to his bankruptcy. But he wore the coin on his watch chain and had the satisfaction of informing Attorney General Sir John Holker during cross-examination that the price asked was not based on the length of time he had spent on the picture, but on `the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime'.

After a time etching and replenishing his coffers in Venice, Whistler returned to marry widow Beatrice Godwin, the subject of `Harmony in Red: Lamplight' (c.1884-86) and the sketch, `Trixie' (c.1892-94). However, they only had eight years together, as she was diagnosed with cancer and he made lithographs like `The Siesta' (1896), which captured her struggle.

As we see `Fondamente dei Mori' (1879-80), Calloway confides that Whistler enjoyed baiting the critics and used his `Ten O'Clock Lecture' to discuss his views on the value of art and the artist's place in culture. We see `Brown and Gold: Self-Portrait' (c.1895-1900) and William Merritt Chase's `James Abbott McNeill Whistler' (1885), as Campbell-Johnston describes how Richard D'Oyly Carte staged the lecture to a black-tie audience so that this manifesto was treated seriously.

Jacobi marvels at how Whistler made the subject of `The Chelsea Girl' (1884) gesture without painting her hands, while explaining that the Tate show was designed to deliver the artist from the caricature. Campbell-Johnston claims he set the standard for painting with integrity and intensity. But the last word goes to Whistler, who urges artists to be more than photographers, as they should strive for visual poetry and harmony.

To those of a certain vintage, James McNeill Whistler will always be John Cleese, explaining (sans American accent) to Oscar Wilde (Graham Chapman) and George Bernard Shaw (Michael Palin) in a Monty Python sketch why the Prince of Wales (Terry Jones) is like a `a big jam doughnut with cream on the top'. This EOS profile opts to steer clear of Wilde - who accused Whistler of spelling `Art with a capital I' - lest he serves as a distraction to one of the first artists to exploit the notion that self-promotion is a key part of the painting game. Actor Bret Jones gives Whistler a dandified drawl that matches the look of challenging confidence that characterises his self-portraits. The passages from his letters and prose are well chosen and offer intriguing insights into the mind of an artist who admitted (usually to Fantin-Latour, who painted him as the odd one out among his French peers in `Homage to Delacroix', 1864) that the creation of his distinctive, musically-titled canvases was hard work.

Filmed at the Tate and beyond (as not everything touched upon here is included in the exhibition), the assembled experts take it in turns to carry the baton, as Bickerstaff proceeds steadily through Whistler's life and career. They seem to be in accord on most things, so there is little intellectual conflict in a film that echoes EOS's Singer Sargent study in dwelling on the importance of milieu in shaping work that isn't quite of the front rank. Indeed, the flaws in Whistler's performative personality appear in his art, which keeps threatening to break out into modernity, with its emphasis on movement and vitality rather than precision of form, without quite having the radical boldness to do so.

It's a shame that Greenwold wasn't allowed to finish the full story of The Peacock Room, as Whistler mocked Leyland by caricaturing him as an avaricious peacock in `The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre (The Creditor)', which was discovered when bailiffs entered his premises following his bankruptcy. Moreover, Jeckyll was so appalled by what had been done to his room that he suffered a breakdown from which he never recovered - as was the case with Ruskin following the trial that should have warned Wilde of the futility (and risks) of suing for libel in the British courts of the time.

While the insights into the influence of Japanese art are fascinating, more might also have been made of Whistler's talent for etching, as many critics consider Rembrandt alone to be his superior. The section on the restoration work undertaken by Tate Britain also feels undersold. But the depiction of the artworks is as impeccable as ever, with the trademark EOS glide across a gallery floor being followed by an establishing shot of the painting and then a series of compelling close-ups that take the viewer into the heart of the image. It's a brilliant method and long may Bickerstaff and producer Phil Grabsky continue to put it to instructive use in presenting art for our sake.