1866
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
The Artist in His Studio is a 1866 oil by James McNeill Whistler, a American Impressionism work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A man in a dark coat stands in a dim room, holding a paintbrush and palette. Behind him, three long scrolls hang on the wall, and shelves hold blue-and-white vases. Whistler painted himself here, but he’s not showing off. The room feels quiet, almost like a Japanese print—flat shapes, soft colors, no deep shadows. He collected the scrolls and porcelain himself, mixing his own art with the things he loved. If you like how this feels, look up *glazing*—the way he built up thin, see-through layers of paint.
By the mid-1860s, the London-based, American artist James McNeill Whistler was increasingly fascinated with the aesthetics of Asian art. In The Artist in His Studio , Whistler stares out at the viewer with palette and paintbrush in hand, surrounded by works from his collection: three Japanese scrolls hang on the wall and Chinese porcelain adorns shelves on the left. He applied thin layers of paint in muted tones to evoke the flattened appearance of Japanese woodblock prints. The composition also recalls the work of the Spanish Baroque painter Diego Velázquez, who likewise included a…
James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), 1865/66; Dr. William McNeill Whistler (1836–1900), London, by 1886 [list by James McNeill Whistler, 1886, GUL BP II 8/7, copy in curatorial object file]; consigned to Goupil Gallery, London, December 1896 [ letter from James McNeill Whistler to Mrs. William Whistler, undated (December 1896), GUW 07023 ; letter from James McNeill Whistler to Dr. William Whistler, dated January 2, 1897, GUW 07025 ]; sold to Douglas William Freshfield (1845–1934), London, by October 1897 [ letter from James McNeill Whistler to David Croal Thomson, October 1897, GUW 08443 ];…
Milwaukee Art Institute, An Exhibition of Forty Paintings Presented to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Friends of American Art , Mar. 1–29, 1925, cat. 40, as In the Studio . Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Exhibitions , July 20–Oct. 29, 1939, cat. 1. WI, Milwaukee Art Institute, Nineteenth Century American Masters , Feb. 20–Mar. 28, 1948, no cat. IL, Durand Art Institute, Lake Forest College, A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago , June 10–16, 1957, no. 2, as The Artist in the Studio . Art Institute of Chicago, Whistler's Mother: An American…
Read the full account in the museum source.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom.
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