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James McNeill Whistler
American, 1834-1903
The Artist in His Studio, 1865/66
Oil on paper mounted on panel
62.9 x 46.4 cm (24 3/4 x 18 1/4 in.)
Signed: Butterfly in cartouche, middle right
Friends of American Art Collection, 1912.141
By the mid-1860s, the London-based American artist James McNeill Whistler was increasingly fascinated with the aesthetics of Asian art, applying thin applications of paint in muted tones to reductive compositions. Further, in The Artist in His Studio, three Japanese scrolls hang on the wall, Chinese porcelain adorns shelves on the left, and the central figure wears a kimono. The artist, who stares out at the viewer with palette and paintbrush in hand, also called on the work of the Spanish Baroque master, Diego Velázquez. Whistler, in essence, attempted to harmonize Western and Eastern artistic elements, placing himself at the center of such an enterprise.
— Permanent collection label
This work is featured in the online catalogue Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions, which accompanied an Art Institute exhibition of the same title. The catalogue explores the artistic collaboration between James McNeill Whistler and Theodore Roussel and offers a new perspective on the artists, their circle, and resulting innovations in nineteenth-century art.
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
Milwaukee Art Institute, Exhibition of Forty Paintings presented to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Friends of American Art, March 1-29, 1925, cat. 40.
Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Exhibitions, July 20-October 29, 1939, cat 1.
Milwaukee Art Institute, Nineteenth Century American Masters, Feb. 20-Mar. 28, 1948, cat. 12.
Durand Art Institute, Lake Forest College, A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago, June 10-16, 1957, cat. 2, as The Artist in the Studio.
Art Institute of Chicago, "Whistler's Mother: An American Icon Returns to Chicago," March 4-May 21, 2017, no cat.
Publication History
Judith A. Barter et al, The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 11.
