Europe and America

Whistler was very cosmopolitan in his outlook. In view of this in 1888 he was a elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy in Munich and in 1891 Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1: Portrait of the Painter's Mother [link – Painting/Portraits/YMSM 101] was purchased by the French government. In 1898 he established a teaching school, the Académie Carmen, in Paris, and in the same year he appropriately became the President of the International Society of Sculptors Painters and Gravers, a society that attracted members and exhibitors from all over Europe, including Monet [link – Key figures], Degas [link – Key figures] and Puvis de Chavannes from France, Fernand Knopff from Belgium, Gustave Klimt from Austria, Max Klinger from Germany and Josef Israels from Holland. A number of Americans also exhibited there, including Whistler’s friends Waldo Story [link – Key figures], Frederick MacMonnies [link – Key figures] and William Merritt Chase [link – Key figures].

Although he had family in the States and talked of delivering his Ten O’Clock Lecture there, Whistler never returned to America. However, he retained many American connections among family, friends, patrons, dealers and artistic followers. He also became famous for his American Sunday breakfasts [link – Design/Collections] at which he served buckwheat cakes and green corn.

In Venice in 1879-1880 Whistler formed friendships with the American painter Frank Duveneck [link – Key figures] and his group of students, the ‘Duveneck Boys’, that included Otto Henry Bacher [link – Key figures], Harper Pennington [link – Key figures] and Robert Frederick Blum [link – Key figures]. Duveneck’s students were in awe of Whistler's experience and reputation, and Whistler, who enjoyed their admiration, happily discussed his work with them and gave them advice. The American critic Henry James [link – Key figures] was also in Venice at this time and joined their social circle.

Whistler’s biographers Joseph and Elizabeth Pennell [link – Key figures] were also Americans, as was one of his most faithful friends and art dealers, Edward Guthrie Kennedy [link – Key figures], who was based in New York. Unlike Henry James, Whistler never renounced his American citizenship to become a British citizen. He continued to talk of America as his ‘home’.