James Abbott McNeill Whistler

1834 — 1903

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was an American painter and printmaker, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, who worked mainly in Paris and London. After leaving West Point he learned etching as a map draftsman, moved to Paris in 1855 and studied under Charles Gleyre. From 1866 he lived in Chelsea, London. Whistler championed art for art's sake and gave his pictures musical titles such as Symphony, Arrangement and Nocturne to stress colour and tone over story. His portrait of his mother, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, painted in 1871, is now in the Musée d'Orsay, and the Peacock Room of 1876–77 is in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington. In 1878 he sued the critic John Ruskin for libel, won, but received only a farthing in damages, and the costs led to his bankruptcy in 1879. He also made celebrated etchings of Venice and Thames scenes. He signed with a stylised butterfly and died in London in 1903.