James Whistler

The American painter and printmaker James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, but was raised for some years in St Petersburg, where his father was undertaking engineering projects for Tsar Nicholas I. After his return to America Whistler found himself ill-suited to study at the prestigious West Point military academy and went to Paris and later London to pursue training and a career as a professional artist. Initially aligning himself to the ‘Realist’ approach to painting, Whistler became renowned as a key proponent of the Aesthetic movement, which championed the idea of ‘art for art's sake’ while rejecting sentimentality and moral messaging. He independently pioneered a form of abstract tonalism, focusing on atmospheric, musical effects and named his works after musical forms such as ‘Nocturnes’, ‘Harmonies’ and ‘Arrangements’. Along with painting, Whistler pursued etching, which he first learned at West Point and later developed under the guidance of his brother-in-law, the London artist, Francis Seymour Haden (1818–1910).