An American in London: Whistler and the Thames
Margaret MacDonald and Patricia de Montford
Philip Wilson Publishers (2013)

A brilliant examination of a great artist, his major works, and his unique relationships with London and the Thames

Until recently, I knew very little about James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) and a younger contemporary painter, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923). Then I attended an exhibition of Sorolla’s magnificent works at the Meadows Museum in Dallas and purchased a copy of Sorolla and America, compiled by Blanca Pons Sorolla and Mark A. Roglán. Later, I obtained a copy of An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, compiled by Margaret MacDonald and Patricia de Montfort. Frankly, given the aesthetic and contextual quality of both volumes, the term “compiler” seems wholly inadequate. For me at least, the two men and their art have been brought to life by those entrusted with that challenge. Bravo!

I am grateful to history.com for this biographical information: James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born on July 11, 1834, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. Establishing himself as a painter in Paris and London, Whistler developed his distinctive style, utilizing muted colors and simple forms. His masterpiece is largely credited as “Whistler’s Mother” (“Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1”). Whistler died in 1903. His work later provided the inspiration for Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).

Visitors to the Amazon website learn that, in the 1860s and 1870s, Whistler produced a body of work based on Battersea Bridge, London. Pivotal to his career, this beautiful group of paintings permits a detailed examination of his approach to composition, subject and technique. The earliest pieces, notably Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge, produced soon after his arrival in London, mark one of his most profound and successful challenges to the art establishment of the time and his influence on the aesthetics of the day. This comprehensive and handsomely illustrated study presents the definitive examples of Whistler’s radical new approach to the time-honored subject of the city and river. The works reveal to us Whistler’s world – the exhibitions, personalities, buildings, style and atmosphere which inform his art and root this American cosmopolitan securely in the ranks of noted artists inspired by London and the Thames.

With regard to this volume, there are several reasons why I think so highly of what MacDonald and de Montfort provide. Here are three. First, the book’s production values are outstanding. The reproductions of Whistler’s works come about as close as possible to suggesting (not duplicating) the visual impact when seeing them in person. I also greatly appreciate the inclusion of photographs, etchings, and works by other artists that expand and enrich even more the sequence of my favorites among Whistler’s major works, including “The Last of Old Westminster” (1862), “Wapping” (1860-64), “Symphony in White No. 2: The Little White Girl” (1864), “Caprice in Purple and Gold: The olden Screen” (1864), “Nocturne: Grey and Gold — Westminster Bridge” (1874/75), and “Nocturne: Blue and Gold — Old Battersea Bridge” (1872/73).

My second reason has to do with the high quality of the text. For those such as I who previously knew little (if anything) about Whistler and especially his years in London, the Introduction, MacDonald’s “Whistler and the Thames,” de Montfort’s “‘Painting river pictures’: Whistler’s Chelsea subjects,” and the narrative within the sequence of chapters provide a superb introduction to and a remarkably lucid explanation of the life and work of one of the greatest artists during the past 100 years.

Also, Margaret MacDonald and Patricia de Montfort display highly developed skills of world-class anthropologists as they create a context, a frame-of-reference, for a major artist and his work during one of the most exciting periods in a great city’s cultural life. For non-scholars such as I, An American in London offers a combination of biographical and historical material with a generous selection of illustrations that bring to life both an artist and his art. Bravo!