INTRODUCTION It is appropriate in our 140th year that The Fine Art Society should celebrate with an exhibition of work by James McNeill Whistler, one of the first and most illustrious artists to show in our galleries. As a painter in oils and in watercolour, as an etcher and a lithographer, Whistler excelled. He also made a stand for the cause of art for art’s sake, and this cost him dear. Although he won the case, he was bankrupted by the costs of his libel action against the critic John Ruskin. He also lost his new home, the White House, designed for him by E.W. Godwin and in which he had lived for less than a year. According to tradition, The Fine Art Society opened its doors at 148 New Bond Street on 14th February 1876 and we still occupy the original premises. Within our building Whistler staged a sensational show in 1883 which was to affect exhibition design radically so that his principles still guide curators today, more than 130 years later. He was equally a pioneer in the print market, and produced a signed, limited edition of his Venice etchings in 1880, the prototype for print publishing of the future. This is the sixth and largest exhibition of Whistler’s work presented at The Fine Art Society since 1994. It will also be shown at C.G. Boerner gallery in New York and it is a collaborative effort with Armin Kunz and Harris Schrank, both of whom share with me a passion for Whistler’s prints. In the past twenty years interest in Whistler has grown. The period has seen many new publications on the artist and the building of several important collections of his work. The most significant development has been the creation of a new catalogue raisonné of Whistler’s etchings by the University of Glasgow. A century after Edward Kennedy’s standard work appeared, this unprecedented research project, led by Margaret MacDonald, with Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg and Joanna Meacock, has resulted in an online catalogue which gives access to virtually all that is known about Whistler’s etchings. It was completed thirteen years after the Art Institute of Chicago published a lavish two-volume catalogue of Whistler’s lithographs, written by Nesta Spink, Harriet Stratis and Martha Tedeschi. The authors of these two new catalogues raisonnés, which update those published shortly after Whistler’s death, have devoted much of their lives to their research. Their meticulous work and insights have inspired others to collect and study the work of Whistler, a man who exemplified much that was important in nineteenth-century art and who has had such a profound influence on those who followed him. When I first became interested in Whistler, there were two books, both published in 1984, the 150th anniversary of his birth, which proved invaluable guides. Katharine Lochnan and Ruth Fine both brought James McNeill Whistler 1834–1903 by an unknown photographer, c.1860–65 Modern silver print, Charles Lang Freer Papers, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., Gift of the Estate of Charles Lang Freer 5
- Page 1 and 2: JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER PRINTS james
- Page 4: THE FINE ART SOCIETY · LONDON deal
- Page 10: EARLY PRINTS AND THE FRENCH SET The
- Page 14: [3] The Kitchen, 1858 Etching on th
- Page 18: [7] La Vieille aux Loques, 1858 Etc
- Page 22: [10] The Wine Glass, 1859 Etching,
- Page 26: LONDON AND THE THAMES Whistler chos
- Page 30: [15] Limehouse, 1859 Etching printe
- Page 34: [19] Billingsgate, 1859 Etching and
- Page 38: [22] The Lime-Burner, 1859 Etching
- Page 42: [25] Penny Passengers, Limehouse, 1
- Page 46: [29] Price’s Candle Factory, 1876
- Page 50: [32] Nocturne, 1878 Lithotint, sign
- Page 54: [35] Drury Lane, 1880-1881 Etching,
- Page 58:
[38] Fish Shop, Chelsea, 1886 Etchi
- Page 62:
[41] J.H. Woods Fruit Shop, Chelsea
- Page 66:
[42] Fumette, 1858 Etching, printed
- Page 70:
the winter of 1861-62; the painting
- Page 74:
[48] Gants de Suède, 1890 Lithogra
- Page 78:
[50] The Sisters, 1894-95 Lithograp
- Page 82:
[52] The Beggars, 1879-1880 Etching
- Page 86:
[54] The Garden, 1879-80 Etching an
- Page 90:
[57] The Rialto, 1879-80 Etching an
- Page 94:
[60] The Little Lagoon, 1879-80 Etc
- Page 98:
[ cat.63] [ cat.64 ]
- Page 102:
[67] Riva, No.2, 1879-80 Etching an
- Page 106:
AMSTERDAM In the years between his
- Page 110:
[71] The Bridge, Amsterdam, 1889 Et
- Page 114:
[ cat.74 ] [ cat.75 ]
- Page 118:
[77] The Mill, 1889 Etching, signed
- Page 122:
Published by The Fine Art Society a