James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on July 10, 1834, the son of a military engineer, Whistler lived in Russia, with brief visits to England, during 1843 – 1849, while his father directed the building of a railroad line.

During 1854 he was a draftsman and map engraver. He left for Paris in 1855 (never to return to the United States) to become an artist. Such early paintings as At the Piano and The Blue Wave showed the realistic influence. In 1858 he published his first series of etchings; a second set, views of the ThamesRiver, followed in 1860. In addition to his etchings, Whistler did occasional remarkable work in dry paint, watercolor, and pastel. In 1859 he moved to London and began a controversial artistic career. His White Girl was a huge success. His most famous painting in this genre was Mrs. George Washington Whistler, 1872, which he also described as Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1 but which was universally known as Whistler's Mother. Subsequent portraits included Thomas Carlyle, 1873; Miss Cecily Alexander, 1873; Yellow Buskin, 1878; and Sarasote, 1884.

D uring1879-1880 he lived in Venice and produced his finest series of etchings. Returning to London, he enjoyed a new popularity and was thought as a portraitist. Always a step ahead of conservative academicians he was never fully accepted by the critics, although by 1886 he was asked to preside over the Royal Society of British Artists; he also organized the newly founded International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Engravers during 1897. He settled again in Paris in 1892, but died in London on July 17, 1903.

N octurne in Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, 1872

Winslow Homer (1836-1910)

Winslow Homer, one of the greatest American painters, was essentially a self-taught artist. At the outbreak of the Civil War Homer accompanied the army on several campaigns as a pictorial correspondent. His first important painting Prisoners from the Front was finished in 1866 and made him one of the most well-known painters in America. His post-war paintings dealt with American country life: farm scenes, children, pretty girls, summer resorts. The Morning Bell (1866), The Country School (1871), Glouster Farm (1874), Milking Time (1875) are unpretentious, down-to-earth subjects showing ordinary people doing their everyday work. His paintings increasingly failed to please the taste of Gilded Age America. His subject matter offended genteel taste. In the eyes of a contemporary writer, Henry James, his paintings seemed hopelessly unfinished and ugly. Homer’s democratic attitude manifested itself in his interest in the life of the American Negroes whom he painted with rare sympathy.

I n the nineties his subject matter and his style underwent a change. He concentrated on the elemental in nature and mankind: the mountains, the forest and particularly the sea. He painted woodsmen, fishermen, sailors. His central theme was man's relationship to nature. He was a pictorial poet of outdoor life of America, of the pioneer spirit that survived in those who lived close to nature" (Lloyd Goodrich). Homer completely ignored the life of the privileged classes of society, and devoted his art to the common people.