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Description: | The Fitzwilliam Museum Department of Paintings, Drawings and Prints curates a collection of more than 90 oil paintings, drawings, etchings, drypoints and lithographs by the American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and signed with his distinctive semi-autobiographical mark of the barb-tailed butterfly.
The bulk of the Whistler archive is composed of prints featuring people and landscape. The people range from the figures emerging from the shadows in his early ÃFrench setÃ' of the 1850s, through intimate domestic scenes of friends and fellow artists in London, such as Seymour Haden and his family, to the late lithographs of nudes and portraits of his sister-in-law ÃBunnieÃ', made in the 1890s. The landscape subjects are primarily urban.
WhistlerÃ's drawings at the Fitzwilliam are along similar lines to his prints, they are executed in coloured chalks on brown paper, with occasional touches of pastel. Four watercolour pictures are included in this group. Several of WhistlerÃ's drawings are named for their primary colours, as was the artistsÃ' custom.
In the catalogue notes to his 1884 exhibition, Whistler stated that "a picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring it about have vanished.", possibly the motivation behind his frequent reworkings of his larger paintings. He was a vehement proponent of the expression Ã-art for artÃ's sakeà and his insistence on colour and form have led him to be seen as a forerunner of the Abstract Art Movement. These tendencies can all be seen in the three of his oil paintings which are held by the Fitzwilliam: Ã-Symphony in grey and brown: Lindsey Row, ChelseaÃ, Ã-Woman Sewingà and Ã-Portrait Study of a ManÃ. | Subjects: | Watercolour painting Etchings Lithographs Paintings Drawings | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | FAX: | 01223 332 923 | Telephone: | 01223 332 900 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:8351 | Go to resource |
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