JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH “ARRANGEMENT IN GREY AND BLACK, NO. 2” FROM WILLIAM GRAY’S NOCTURNES, MARINES & CHEVALET PIECES, 1893
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IM00091
$650.00
$650.00
per item
Choice toned silver print Photograph Signed “Whistler” in pencil by the artist together with his “butterfly” monogram. Signed on the mount. Image 10” x 6.5” on photographer’s mount 21” x 15.5” overall. Depicts “Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2 Portrait of Thomas Carlyle.” Age-toned with edge wear, top right corner of matting cracked, and spotting to photo.
JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER American painter and etcher, working mainly in London and in Paris; achieved recognition by a series of great painting, including The Little White Girl and the famous Portrait of the Painter’s Mother [Whistler’s Mother].
From the portfolio of photographs by William Gray entitled “Nocturnes – Marines – Chevalet Pieces”, London, ca. 1893. The original portfolio had been photographed during Whistler’s successful 1892 exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in London. Nigel Thorp, in his study of Whistler’s photographs in the Glasgow University Library noted that in 1892 the proposal was made to issue and album of photographs of the works included in the exhibition Nocturenes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces [William Gray of Glasgow was chosen to photograph the painting]. Reproductions of his paintings had been available in other mediums before then but Whistler was certain now that he wanted photographic reproductions and photographs rather than photogravures, because photograph were in his view ‘more artistic’. In June,1892 Thompson, the manager of the Goupil Gallery came to Paris to discuss the album and other matters with Whistler, but progress was slow, not least because of Whistler’s insistence that all the details should be correct – the wording, the letterpress arrangement, the color of the mounts, the size of the margins, the design of the portfolio, the blocking on the cover the use of the right butterfly for as he wrote to Thompson, ‘this work must be perfect of its kind’. By the end of 1893 thirty-three signed copies and twenty-seven unsigned copies of the set had been sold. Whistler has long maintained an interest in photograph and was one of the first artists of his generation to recognize its commercial potential.
Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle is an 1872-3 oil on canvas painting by James NcNeill Whistler. It depicts the Scottish social critic, philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle in a composition similar to that of Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, painted in 1871. It is now in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland. By the time he sat for Whistler, Thomas Carlyle had lived in Chelsea, London, for 47 years, and was one of its most recognized residents. He lived at 24 Cheyne Row, now Carlyle’s House, which is preserved as a museum, very near to Lindsey House, now 96 Cheyne Walk, where Whistler had his studio. Accompanied by a mutual friend, Carlyle visited Whistler's studio, viewed the painting of the artist's mother, and according to Whistler "He liked the simplicity of it, the old lady sitting with her hands in her lap, and said he would be painted. And he came one morning soon, and he sat down, and I had the canvas ready, and my brushes and palette, and Carlyle said, “And now, mon, fire away!'"
JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER American painter and etcher, working mainly in London and in Paris; achieved recognition by a series of great painting, including The Little White Girl and the famous Portrait of the Painter’s Mother [Whistler’s Mother].
From the portfolio of photographs by William Gray entitled “Nocturnes – Marines – Chevalet Pieces”, London, ca. 1893. The original portfolio had been photographed during Whistler’s successful 1892 exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in London. Nigel Thorp, in his study of Whistler’s photographs in the Glasgow University Library noted that in 1892 the proposal was made to issue and album of photographs of the works included in the exhibition Nocturenes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces [William Gray of Glasgow was chosen to photograph the painting]. Reproductions of his paintings had been available in other mediums before then but Whistler was certain now that he wanted photographic reproductions and photographs rather than photogravures, because photograph were in his view ‘more artistic’. In June,1892 Thompson, the manager of the Goupil Gallery came to Paris to discuss the album and other matters with Whistler, but progress was slow, not least because of Whistler’s insistence that all the details should be correct – the wording, the letterpress arrangement, the color of the mounts, the size of the margins, the design of the portfolio, the blocking on the cover the use of the right butterfly for as he wrote to Thompson, ‘this work must be perfect of its kind’. By the end of 1893 thirty-three signed copies and twenty-seven unsigned copies of the set had been sold. Whistler has long maintained an interest in photograph and was one of the first artists of his generation to recognize its commercial potential.
Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle is an 1872-3 oil on canvas painting by James NcNeill Whistler. It depicts the Scottish social critic, philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle in a composition similar to that of Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, painted in 1871. It is now in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland. By the time he sat for Whistler, Thomas Carlyle had lived in Chelsea, London, for 47 years, and was one of its most recognized residents. He lived at 24 Cheyne Row, now Carlyle’s House, which is preserved as a museum, very near to Lindsey House, now 96 Cheyne Walk, where Whistler had his studio. Accompanied by a mutual friend, Carlyle visited Whistler's studio, viewed the painting of the artist's mother, and according to Whistler "He liked the simplicity of it, the old lady sitting with her hands in her lap, and said he would be painted. And he came one morning soon, and he sat down, and I had the canvas ready, and my brushes and palette, and Carlyle said, “And now, mon, fire away!'"
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