Friends Study Afternoon - Whistler & Nature: A presentation and exhibition tour with the curator and the exhibition book co-author

Drawing together more than 100 works from the collections of the Hunterian Art Gallery, The Fitzwilliam Museum, the V&A and the Ashmolean Museum, Whistler & Nature (8 January – 17 March) examines 19th-century gradations of the productive versus the ‘wild’ landscape, and reviews the work of James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903) – a modernising, innovative artist of his time. Whistler came from a family of soldiers and engineers. Drawing and map-making were important components of the military training that Whistler acquired as an officer cadet at West Point Academy from 1851 to 1854, where he attempted to fulfil his father’s desire to make engineering or architecture his profession.

 

The works in this exhibition explore shifts between the natural and man-made worlds – rivers and wharves; gardens and courtyards – and between the ideal and the naturalistic. This vision is underpinned by Whistler’s kinship with the makers of railways, bridges and ships, cornerstones of Victorian wealth and trade. The works in this exhibition were forged at a time when land was the predominant source of wealth, and also the scene of suburban life and leisure.

 

The Study Afternoon will be led by the exhibition curator Dr Patricia de Montfort, Lecturer in History of Art/Curator in Whistler Studies (History of Art), University of Glasgow, and the exhibition book co-author, Professor Clare A.P. Willsdon, History of Western Art, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow. Exhibition developed by Compton Verney, in partnership with The Hunterian, University ofGlasgow.