Jul 19 2001
Whistler’s Secret?
It seems that Whistler (of “Whistler’s Mother” fame) might have had a secret. Whistler is surely one of the most interesting and unclassifiable of artists, and now it seems that he may also have been an arms smuggler. It’s all very circumstantial, but nonetheless intriguing, and it does seem like just the kind of thing he would do, partly because he needed money at this time in his life, and partly because he liked to make trouble and yank people’s chains.
Whistler was bankrupted by a lawsuit he brought against John Ruskin, an art critic who trashed his inventive new style of paintings which Whistler called “Nocturnes”. Personally, I find them beautiful, particularly this one 
, but Ruskin described these paintings as “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Though Whistler won the lawsuit against Ruskin, he was awarded only a farthing and the cost of the court proceedings bankrupted him.
I’m sure wherever he is, he would love the fact that he’s still in the news and still making trouble.
Comments Off on Whistler’s Secret?