Room 161

James McNeill Whistler

1834–1903, USA (Lowell), France (Paris), England (London), Aestheticism

Whistler grew up in Massachusetts and St Petersburg and lived in Paris and London. “Art for art’s sake” was his motto: he called his pictures “symphonies”, “arrangements” and “nocturnes”, as if they were pieces of music. His etchings of the Thames and of Venice are among the finest of the nineteenth century.

All works