Romantics & Realists: Whistler

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Overview

The personal life of James Abbott McNeill Whistler may have been the most remarkable of any 19th century artist. Born an American, he spent his childhood in St. Petersburg, received only his formal art training in the unlikely surroundings of West Point Military Academy, and then emigrated to Europe to pursue an artistic career. Whistler's radical emphasis on composition at the expense of subject matter was typified when he painted his famous portrait of his mother and called it Arrangement in Grey and Black.