Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Jun. 23--BOSTON -- Jimmy's mom is back in Boston. It's her first visit here in 23 years. And she hasn't changed a bit.
Renowned artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Jimmy to his friends, is a superstar in the art world. He was born in Lowell in 1834, but lived his adult life in Paris and London, where he died in 1903.
If you go/10
Mom is Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler, one of the world's most easily recognized mamas. A somber-looking woman dressed in black, she poses in profile in Whistler's "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother," his masterpiece painting known around the world simply as "Whistler's Mother."
The painting rarely visits the United States. But it currently hangs in a gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For the next three months, it's the main attraction at Americans in Paris, MFA's summer blockbuster, which opens Sunday and runs through Sept. 24.
Other compelling paintings fill the gallery walls in the stunning show, which focuses on American artists who flocked to cosmopolitan Paris, the heart of the art world from 1860 to 1900.
Most notable are John Singer Sargent's controversial "Madame X," plus paintings by Mary Cassatt, Frank Benson, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam and another native Lowellian, Willard Metcalf, a prominent American Impressionist.
But none have the allure of Whistler's iconic painting -- estimated to be worth $30 million. Nabbing it was a coup for MFA staffers, who negotiated for three years with the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, which owns the painting. Staff from London's National Gallery and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition co-producers, joined the quest.
The painting comes here from the London leg of the exhibit. Boston audiences are the only ones to view it in America, since it won't be part of Americans in Paris when it moves to New York this fall.
"It's exciting to have 'Mother' so close to Lowell this summer. It's a stunning painting to see, no matter how many times you see it. I've seen her twice before in Paris and Scotland and can't wait to see her again," said Michael Lally, executive director of the Whistler House Museum of Art, which plans a bus trip from Lowell to the MFA. The date will be announced when plans are finalized.
Whistler painted the portrait in his London studio in 1871. But it belongs in Americans in Paris since he was a major player in the Parisian art scene. And "Whistler's Mother" was the first painting by an American artist to be purchased by the French government.
"Why is Whistler's Mother in this exhibit when she was painted in London?" asked Erica Hirshler, MFA curator of Americans in Paris, during a tour of the exhibit. "First, it's about the role that artists took in establishing their reputations by showing in Paris. Whistler was very conscious of that."
He showed it at Durand-Ruel's Paris gallery in 1873. It was shown at the Salon of 1883, where it received public and critical acclaim, plus the third-class medal. (The juried Salon was the crucial annual art exhibition for artists during this period, often making or breaking a reputation).
Following the Salon, Whistler's pals, poet Stephane Mallarme, critic Theodore Duret and artist Claude Monet, waged a public campaign to convince the government to buy the painting.
"When the French government acquired it for the national collections in 1891, it validated Whistler's artistic career and even got a front page story in Le Figaro. He immediately moved back to Paris," said Hirshler.
"Whistler's Mother" hangs directly across from his "Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl," a portrait of his model/mistress Jo Hiffernan, in an interesting juxtaposition of youth and old age. "White Girl," painted in 1862, launched his reputation on the international art scene as a daring, controversial figure.
"Whistler wasn't shy of creating controversy and the painting of his Irish mistress did that," said Hirshler.
Rejected first by the Royal Academy exhibition of 1862 and then by the 1863 Salon, it hung in the Salon de Refuses, an infamous alternative salon created by the Emporer Napoleon III to display the rejected works.
One critic dubbed it "the chief piece in the heretics' salon."
Noted Hirshler, "A friend wrote Whistler that 'now you are accepted.' "
Whistler's "Coast of Brittany (Alone with Tide)," painted in the realist style of his early mentor Gustave Courbet, "The Sea" and "Harmony in Blue and Silver" are also in the show.
But none stand out like his iconic mom.
-----
Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
