'Whistler & Nature' casts a new light on the work of the great late-Victorian master, James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Born in America, but living in the UK for most of his life, he was known as an artist with a bold personality and a revolutionary attitude towards the natural world.
Featuring around 90 paintings, sketches and prints, the exhibition examines how his family involvement in early nineteenth-century industry, and pursuit of a career in the U.S. military, shaped his knowledge of observational drawing and influenced his artistic style. It also looks afresh at his work in the context of attitudes to landscape in British art and design. Whistler’s smoky images of warehouses, harbours and industrial scenes were designed to showcase a new kind of productive, wealth-generating landscape for the modern Victorian age.
