Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly (Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute)
by Marc Simpson
from Yale University Press
Whistler Landscapes and Seascapes: Landscapes and Seascapes (Watson-Guptill Famous Artists)
by Donald Holden
from Watson-Guptill Publications
This book reexamines the colorful American artist's all-but-forgotten role as "midwife at the birth of abstract painting". In text that sparkles with the painter's own vivid epigrams, the author documents how Whistler's unorthodox pictorial design and his new vision of space set the stage for geometric abstraction in 20th century art. 32 full-page color reproductions.
James McNeill Whistler: Beyond the Myth
by Ronald Anderson
from Da Capo Press
Whistler: Colour Library (Phaidon Colour Library)
by Frances Spalding
from Phaidon Press
Whistler's Mother: An American Icon
from Lund Humphries Publishers
In 1871 James McNeill Whistler painted the famous portrait of his mother, "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother". It enjoyed a colourful history: threatened by rejection at the Royal Academy, pawned by the artist, bought by the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris, it now hangs in the Musee d'Orsay, Paris. Through exhibitions, publications and caricatures, it has become one of the most familiar images of the century, and a great American icon. This illustrated volume looks at the genesis and history of the portrait, and examines the relationship between mother and son that inspired the painting. It explores the growth of Whistler's "Mother" as a potent image, its appearance inspiring mass pilgrimages and adulation, and looks more broadly at the portrait of the artist's mother as a productive source of artistic inspiration following Whistler. The book is published to coincide with the centenary of Whistler's death in 2003, marked by a range of exhibitions internationally.
Whistler: Masterworks
James McNeill Whistler
by Richard Dorment
from Harry N Abrams
Featuring contributions by Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Ruth Fine, and Genevieve Lacambre, this catalogue of the largest exhibition devoted to Whistler since his death in 1903 reveals the full range and extraordinary variety of his work, portraying him as a dedicated teacher and critic and a central figure in the Victorian art world. Chronology; notes. 333 illustrations, 205 in color.
Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice
by Margaret F. MacDonald
from University of California Press
In September 1879, James McNeill Whistler boarded the Venice-bound night train in Paris. He was forty-five years old and bankrupt. What was to be a three-month stay in the Italian city--long enough to complete a set of twelve etchings--stretched to fourteen months. When Whistler returned to London, he brought back over fifty magnificent etchings and a hundred pastels, far in excess of the original commission. In Palaces in the Night, Margaret F. MacDonald looks at this key period in Whistler's career, examining his unique vision of Venice and his development of the medium of etching. She shows how he reestablished himself in the art world of London and Paris, turning disaster and disgrace into profit and prestige. Lavishly illustrated with some of the most beautiful and intriguing images Whistler ever produced, this book provides a fascinating account of a pivotal period in the artist's long and complicated career.
Whistler's aim was to restore both his fortune and reputation with the Venetian etchings. To that end he included views of familiar sights like the Riva degli Schiavoni and San Marco, but he also captured quiet backwaters, secret gardens, and lantern-lit windows that did not appear in any guidebook. His selection of views and compositions, plus the expressiveness of his line and printing, differentiated his work from that of others, and MacDonald shows the process by which Whistler selected, shaped, and edited his Venetian corpus. He drew figures in distinctively Italian costume, each an individual, moving, gesturing, and interacting with other real people.
An appendix of Whistler's letters from Venice provides an entertaining account of his time there and also deepens the reader's understanding of how the city challenged and inspired him.
Whistler's Venice (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Britis)
by Alastair Grieve
from Paul Mellon Center BA
Planning a brief stay in Venice to create twelve commissioned etchings, Whistler became enchanted with the beauty of the city in 1879 and remained there for more than a year. He worked in all areas of the city, producing about fifty etchings, a few oils, and, most remarkably, one hundred pastels. This beautifully illustrated book is the first to follow Whistler's progress through Venice as he made his powerful and evocative portraits of the city. Alongside each of Whistler's etchings, pastels, and oils are photographs of the actual sites where he made them. Alastair Grieve's detailed comparisons of Whistler's works and their corresponding sites reveal much about the artist's methods and techniques, about the changing fabric of the city, and about Whistler's genius as a topographical artist. Grieve also compares Whistler's approach with that of other artists and photographers working in Venice at the same time. Whistler arrived in Venice bankrupt in the wake of a sensational libel trial against John Ruskin in London. Venice proved both restorative and transforming for Whistler -- it released a flood of creativity that enabled him to reestablish his finances, his reputation, and to a degree his personal life. His representations of well-known landmarks, including the church of Santa Maria della Salute and the Rialto Bridge, as well as many minor courts, alleys, and back canals, established a new and original iconography of the city. Upon his return to London, Whistler exhibited his Venice works and gradually reassumed a leading place in the Victorian art avant-garde.
Whistler and His Circle in Venice
by Eric Denker
from Merrell
Whistler and His Circle in Venice is a landmark publication, offering a fresh examination of one of the most influential turn-of-the-century artists on the 100th anniversary of his death in 1903.
This stunning new survey focuses on a little-documented period of Whistler's career: his stay in Venice from 1879 to 1880. Arriving in the footsteps of such renowned artists as Canaletto and Turner, whose enthusiasm for representing the city was shared by so many Grand Tourists, Whistler was determined to do more than simply capture its popular views. He wanted to penetrate further - to achieve a greater understanding of the nature of Venice itself.
Whistler and His Circle in Venice explores Whistler's struggle to find a "Venice of the Venetians," through a sumptuous collection of his pastels, etchings, watercolors, and oil paintings. It goes on to examine in detail the significance of Whistler's etchings in terms of his technical and compositional innovations.
As this book reveals, Whistler's new approach to Venice was profoundly significant, challenging and redefining the ways in which others viewed the city. It also traces the remarkable breadth of his influence, on numerous artists in the US and Europe, including Walter Sickert, and most notably on American artist John Singer Sargent, whose lifelong association with Whistler-begun during this stay in Venice-receives a new and in-depth appraisal. Whistler's impact on pictorial photography - and especially on one of the great American masters, Alfred Stieglitz - is explored here for the first time.
Whistler and His Circle in Venice offers new insight into the career of one of the period's most important figures. Packed with Whistler's beautiful evocations of one of the best-loved cities in the world, this book will appeal as much to lovers of Venice as to those fascinated by Whistler himself.
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