Galerie Paul Prouté

Born in the United States, where he spent the first twenty years of his life, Whistler did not find his artistic calling until he moved to Europe. Initially associated with French realist circles, the painter found his own unique path in his various Nocturnes, Arrangements, and Harmonies in which this advocate of art for art’s sake focused more on evoking sensations than on depicting the subject, and on the interplay of tones rather than on line drawing. His watercolors, pastels, and prints demonstrate the same artistic evolution and the same qualities. Trained in printmaking during his military studies in the United States, Whistler produced, upon his arrival in France, a series of naturalist-inspired etchings that set him apart; the subsequent series—the most significant of which were devoted to the Thames and Venice—are remarkable for their great economy of means in the interplay of linework, counterbalanced by skillful and ethereal inking effects. Whistler’s approximately one hundred and eighty lithographs, most of which were produced toward the end of his life, are equally masterful (particularly his experimental “lithotints”).