The woman in white : Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler / Margaret F. MacDonald ; with contributions by Charles Brock, Patricia de Montfort, Joanna Dunn, Grischka Petri, Aileen Ribeiro, Joyce H. Townsend.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-222) and index. Connected to an exhibition organized by and scheduled to open in 2022 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Contents:
Foreword / Kaywin Feldman, Director, National Gallery of Art, Rebecca Salter, President, Royal Academy of Arts -- Preface / Margaret F. MacDonald, University of Glasgow, Ann Dumas, Royal Academy of Arts, Charles Brock, National Gallery of Art -- Whistler and the woman in white / Margaret F. MacDonald -- Joanna Hiffernan and James Whistler : an artistic partnership / Margaret F. MacDonald -- Painting Joanna Hiffernan / Margaret F. MacDonald, Joanna Dunn, and Joyce H. Townsend -- Plates -- "A great sensation" : women in white in late Victorian literature and popular culture / Patricia de Montfort -- Fashioning white in the work of Whistler and his contemporaries / Aileen Ribeiro -- The "symphonies in white" : display, sale, and reproduction / Grischka Petri -- A short history of the woman in white / Charles Brock -- Appendix of archival materials -- List of plates -- Notes/abbreviations -- Selected bibliography.
Summary:
In 1860 James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and Joanna Hiffernan (1839-1886) met and began a significant professional and personal relationship. Hiffernan posed as a model for many of Whistler's works, including his controversial Symphony in White paintings, a trilogy that fascinated and challenged viewers with its complex associations with sex and morality, class and fashion, academic and realist art, Victorian popular fiction, aestheticism and spiritualism. This luxuriously illustrated volume provides the first comprehensive account of Hiffernan's partnership with Whistler throughout the 1860s and 1870s-a period when Whistler was forging a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. A series of essays discusses how Hiffernan and Whistler overturned artistic conventions and sheds light on their interactions with contemporaries, including Gustave Courbet, for whom she also modeled. Packed with new insights into the creation, marketing, and cultural context of Whistler's iconic works, this study also traces their resonance for his fellow artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent, and Gustav Klimt. Exhibition: Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (23.02.-23.05.2022) / National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA (03.07.-10.10.2022).
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.