Whistler in Washington D.C

Magazine Antiques, June, 1995 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

The Freer Gallery exhibition comprises thirty-one paintings, drawings, and prints executed by Whistler between 1860 and 1880. These works show a great affinity to Japanese art, a point that becomes evident when they are compared to the sixteen Japanese prints, paintings, lacquers, and ceramics also in the show. Many of the Japanese objects were purchased by Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) with Whistler's encouragement. Indeed, the show is particularly important because Freer established the museum that bears his name with the stipulation that works of art would never be loaned outside the museum. Moreover, to prevent fading, Whistler's works on paper are not on permanent view at the museum.

Freer met Whistler in 1890 and they remained friends until Whistler's death in 1903. In conjunction with this exhibition, the Freer Gallery has published the correspondence between Whistler and Freer in a book entitled With Kindest Regards, edited by Linda Merrill. The letters, telegrams, calling cards, and cables they exchanged (along with some correspondence between Freer and members of Whistler's family) reveal that despite Whistler's public image as an acerbic and vitriolic man, he was quite capable of maintaining a polite and even affectionate relationship with this patron. In addition, the documents prove that although Whistler sought both commercial and critical success in London and Paris, and remained an expatriate throughout his adult life, he fervently wished that his works would be esteemed in his native America and that a great collection of them would be permanently housed here.

From the outset, Freer understood his role as a custodian of Whistler's legacy and vowed that he would never dispose of one of Whistler's works. On November 23, 1894, Freer wrote to Whistler from Paris, "The pictures will give me great delight and America is most fortunate to possess them," and on November 1, 1901, he reaffirmed in a letter to Whistler's sister-in-law Rosalind Philip, "I wish that some time you would come with Mr. Whistler and see them in their new resting place. They will never again be 'on the market.'" As a result, the Freer Gallery contains one of the largest collections of Whistler's works in the world - 130 paintings, 174 drawings, and 946 prints, as well as the richly decorated Peacock Room - supported by numerous documents and archival materials.

It is fitting that the Freer Gallery should have organized this exhibition since Freer and Whistler's friendship was fueled by a mutual regard for Japanese fine and decorative arts. Whistler particularly admired the asymmetrical compositions, economy of line, and subject matter of Japanese art, although he never abandoned the traditional Western approach to painting in perspective. Whistler's preoccupation with things Japanese is evident in an early sketch by Henri Fantin-Latour for his now-famous picture Hommage a Delacroix depicting the leading artists and critics of the period, among them Whistler. The sketch shows Whistler dressed in an Oriental robe, as he had asked the artist to depict him.

Freer had a standing order for Whistler's prints which was, in theory, to be filled as soon as the artist approved the press proofs. In a letter of January 9, 1894, Freer set out the parameters of their business relationship: "As I told you in London I have so much trouble to get satisfactory proofs from the dealers, I would greatly prefer to purchase direct from you, and you can depend upon my taking at least one impression of each of your etchings, dry points, and lithographs. Will it trouble you too much to select and forward to me accordingly?" Freer pressed for this agreement since some of the copperplates for Whistler's etchings were so detailed that after the first ten proofs it was impossible to pull more of acceptable quality.

Whistler purchased his Oriental porcelains and other objects from European dealers. Freer, on the other hand, traveled to the Orient. He acquired his first Asian object - a fan - in 1887, and in 1892 he purchased some Japanese prints and a Satsuma-ware bottle with decoration that he described as "Whistlerian." One of Whistler's most important, and certainly most monumental, works to demonstrate an Oriental influence was the Peacock Room, which Freer bought after Whistler's death and installed in his house in Detroit, Michigan. It is now one of the focal points of the Freer Gallery and has recently been restored (see ANTIQUES, June 1993, pp. 894-901). It was a particularly important acquisition for Freer because it was Whistler's only surviving complete interior.

Eric Denker, the guest curator of the National Portrait Gallery exhibition In Pursuit of the Butterfly, has selected eighty-three of the approximately four hundred likenesses of Whistler that are known to survive. Whistler once said that "Fame, even if artificial, is not only a balm, it is a tonic" - a statement that reveals a passion for notoriety that ultimately caused him to be lampooned in the press. Yet painters, print makers, caricaturists, and photographers all found Whistler a fascinating subject. Proper and polite behavior among the upper classes in Victorian England was of great importance, and Whistler stood out because he dared to be different. His physical appearance was flamboyant and individualistic. He was always impeccably dressed in public, wearing a distinctive hat (undated portraits can sometimes be dated by the hat he is wearing), a shock of white hair on his forehead (which he is known to have spent hours grooming), a long walking stick, and a monocle. His eccentric dress was a part of the public persona he studiously strived to create. He was a man known for his astonishing wit and his outlandish comments, many of which were quoted in the press that Whistler manipulated so well. Newspaper and magazine accounts of his latest exploits were frequently illustrated with remarkably witty caricatures.