Whistler, JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL, painter and etcher, was born at Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834, a son of Major George Washington Whistler, consulting engineer of the St Petersburg and Moscow Railway (1800-49). He studied for a time at West Point, next came to Paris, worked for two years in the studio of Gleyre, and afterwards settled in London. In 1884 he became a member of the Society of British Artists, of which he was president from 1886 to 1889. In France he received a medal (3d class) at the Salon of 1883, a gold medal at the Exposition of 1889, and was 'Hors Concours' at the Salon in 1892; and he was made Chevalier (1889) and Officer (1891) of the Legion of Honour. In 1889 he was elected a member of the Munich Academy, and received the Cross of the Order of St Michael.
In 1859 he began to exhibit in the Royal Academy, showing 'Two Etchings from Nature,' which were followed in 1860 by five dry-point portraits and etchings of Thames subjects, and an oil-picture of a mother and child 'At the Piano,' which was purchased by John Phillip, R.A. Three years later his 'White Girl' was rejected by the jury of the Paris Salon, but attracted considerable attention in the Salon des Refusés. Since then he has exhibited frequently in the Salon, the Academy, the Grosvenor Gallery, the Society of British Artists, and in 1874 and 1892 he has held exhibitions of his paintings in London.
The finest of his oil-pictures are 'The Artist's Mother—an arrangement in Black and Gray,' shown in the Royal Academy of 1872, awarded a gold medal in the Salon of 1884, and purchased for the Luxembourg Gallery in 1891; the 'Portrait of Thomas Carlyle,' shown in the artist's exhibition of 1874, and purchased by the Glasgow Corporation in 1891; and the 'Portrait of Miss Alexander—Harmony in Gray and Green.' In addition to many other portraits, such as those of Senior Sarasate, Miss Rosa Corder, Irving as Philip II., and Lady Archibald Campbell, he has produced some fascinating figure subjects and views on the
Thames, &c. in oils. He is also a skilful worker in pastels upon tinted paper; while as a purely decorative artist he is known by the 'Peacock Room,' painted in 1877 in Mr Leyland's house at Prince's Gate, London, and by the 'Music Room' in Señor Sarasate's residence in Paris.
As an etcher and dry-pointer Whistler's eminence is even more widely recognised than as a worker in colour. His etchings include 'The French Set,' (13 subjects, Paris, 1858); the 'Thames Set' (16 subjects, London, 1871); the 'First Venice Set' (12 plates, London, 1880); the 'Second Venice Set' (26 plates, 1886). In addition to these series Whistler has executed many admirable single plates, including some splendid portraits in dry-point. The total number of his etchings, as catalogued by Frederick Wedmore in 1886, was 214, and their freedom, spirit, and unerring selection of line entitle him to rank as the chief of living 'painter-etchers.' He has also executed a few lithographs of very varying merit, the Songs on Stone (1892) especially illustrating his skill.
In Fors Clavigera for July 1877 Ruskin made a most intemperate attack upon the paintings exhibited by Whistler in the Grosvenor Gallery, and next year the artist sned the critic for libel. The trial attracted much attention, and ended in a verdict for the plaintiff of one farthing damages without costs. Whistler retaliated in a pamphlet, 'Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics,' which, along with his brilliant 'Ten O'Clock' lecture, and various occasional letters upon art and personal subjects, were collected in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890; augmented ed. 1892).
Whistler's art is original and individual. He never trusts for effect to attractiveness of subject, to human sentiment or anecdotal interest. The charm of his work lies in its technical qualities, in its skilful combinations of tone and colour, of line and mass; and severely restricting himself in his artistic aims, he attains with singular perfection those which he values and for which he strives.