Royal Academy of Arts
26 February – 22 May 2022
Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan is the first exhibition to examine the important role played by the Irish-born model Joanna Hiffernan (1839?–1886) in establishing the reputation of the American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) as one of the most influential artists of the late 19th century. Consisting of over 70 works, the exhibition brings together nearly all of Whistler’s depictions of Hiffernan, and includes paintings, prints, drawings, and related art works and ephemera.
Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan explores the pair’s professional and personal relationship over more than 20 years and examines how the artwork resulting from their collaboration has influenced and resonated with artists into the 20th century.
The exhibition is arranged thematically in six sections.
London in the 1860s features depictions of London including Whistler’s Wapping, 1860-64 (National Gallery of Art, Washington) and other paintings from the 1850s and 1860s by British artists that portray the theme of the woman in white in various archetypal guises, including Dante Gabrielle Rosetti’s Ecce Ancilla Domine! [The Annunciation], 1849-50, (Tate, UK).
The following section, Symphonies in White, is devoted to the artistic collaboration between Whistler and Hiffernan in the 1860s. A key highlight is Whistler’s three Symphony in White paintings that are rarely shown together: Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl, 1862, (National Gallery of Art, Washington), Symphony in White, No.II: The Little White Girl, 1864, (Tate, UK) and Symphony in White, No. III, 1865-67, (Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham). This section also includes other important images of Hiffernan from 1860 to 1866, the period when the young American artist was forging a reputation as one of the most innovative artists of his generation.
Whistler and Hiffernan: The Prints demonstrates Whistler’s skills as a printmaker, especially in his exquisitely nuanced images of Hiffernan.
The following section examines the influence of Japonisme on Whistler, in works such as his Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, 1864, (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia), which shows Hiffernan wearing a kimono and surrounded with Asian objects from Whistler’s collection. Items from Whistler’s porcelain collection and Woodblock prints such as The Banks of the Sumida River, 1857, by Utagawa Hiroshige (Victoria and Albert Museum) are also be included.
Whistler and Courbet presents the works of Gustave Courbet, who painted Hiffernan when she and Whistler joined Courbet in 1865 in Trouville, Normandy. Whistler’s restrained, atmospheric seascapes are contrasted with Courbet’s more robust ‘paysages de mer’. Several of Courbet’s depictions of Hiffernan are also presented, including Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, 1865–66, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
Whistler and Hiffernan’s legacy is revealed through the final section entitled Women in White, which includes paintings from the late 1860s until just after the turn of the century by a group of international artists, many of whom knew Whistler and were directly influenced by his revolutionary treatment of the theme. Highlights include John Everett Millais’ The Somnambulist, 1871, (Private Collection), Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Hermine Gallia, 1904, (National Gallery, London) and Andrée Karpelés’ Symphonie en blanc, 1908, (Musée Des Beaux-Arts De Nantes, Nantes).
Images
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862. Oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Harris Whittemore Collection
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Wapping, 1860–64. Oil on canvas, 72 x 101.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, John Hay Whitney Collection
Gustave Courbet, Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, 1865–66. Oil on canvas, 55.9 x 66 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. 0. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. 0. Havemeyer
George Frederic Watts, Lady Dalrymple, 1851. Oil on canvas, 198 x 78.7 cm © Watts Gallery Trust
Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Hermine Gallia, 1904. Oil on canvas, 170.5 x 96.5 cm. The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1976
Biography of Joanna Hiffernan
The third daughter of John Hefferman (Hiffernan), a school master, and Catherine Hannan was christened “Johanna” in Limerick, Ireland, in 1839. The family had emigrated to London by 1843. Joanna Hiffernan, possibly studying art and modelling, met James Abbott McNeill Whistler in 1860 and posed for Wapping in that same year. In March 1861 “Ann Hiffernan” was listed as Whistler’s “wife”, living in Greenwich. Work started on a full-length portrait of Hiffernan dressed in white, in Paris in December. She posed for many works during the early 1860s for Whistler, from Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862 and Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, 1864 to Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, 1864, and Symphony in White, No. 3 in 1865.
In the autumn of 1865, Whistler and Hiffernan joined Gustave Courbet in Trouville where Courbet painted Hiffernan. In the following year, Whistler made a will in her favour and gave her Power of Attorney while he was absent in Chile. Joanna and her sister Agnes Hiffernan took charge of Whistler’s son Charlie Hanson (b. 1870) and raised him. In 1879 Maud Franklin, by then Whistler’s chief model and companion, accompanied Whistler to Venice leaving ‘Aunty Jo’ and Agnes to look after his son.
After several months suffering from bronchitis, Joanna Hiffernan died in Holborn, with her sister, Agnes by her side, on 3 July 1886.
Biography of James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1842, the family moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where Whistler studied drawing at the Imperial Academy of Science. In 1855 Whistler settled in Paris, where he studied at the Ecole Impériale et Speciale de Dessin, before entering the Académie Gleyre. He quickly associated himself with avant-garde artists, and was influenced by Courbet's realism, as well as the 17th century Dutch and Spanish schools.
In 1859 he moved to London, meeting Joanna Hiffernan the year later, where she became his model and muse. He achieved international notoriety when Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862 was rejected at both the Royal Academy and the Salon, but was a major attraction at the famous Salon des Refusés in 1863. Symphony in White, No.II: The Little White Girl, 1864 was hung at the RA in 1865 and Symphony in White, No. III, 1865-67, in 1867.
During the early 1870s Whistlers’ work exerted a strong influence on the Aesthetic movement's interior design. In 1877 the critic John Ruskin denounced Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, c. 1875 as being tantamount to "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." The artist successfully sued Ruskin for libel, but was awarded minimal damages and was declared bankrupt in 1879.
After his bankruptcy, Whistler and Maud Franklin took refuge in Venice. Throughout the 1880s he exhibited his work widely and proclaimed his aesthetic theories in print and lectures. During the late 1880s and 1890s Whistler achieved recognition as an artist of international stature. His paintings were acquired by public collections, and he received awards at exhibitions. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, and received the Légion d'Honneur.
In 1888 he married Beatrice Godwin, living between Paris and London. After his death in 1903, memorial exhibitions were held in Boston in 1904, and, in 1905, in London, Paris, and Rotterdam.
Organisation
The exhibition is organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London and by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition has been curated by Margaret F. MacDonald, Professor Emerita and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow, University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Ann Dumas, Curator, Royal Academy of Arts, London and Consulting Curator of European Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Charles Brock, Associate Curator, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Accompanying Publication
A fascinating look at the partnership of artist James McNeill Whistler and his chief model, Joanna Hiffernan, and the iconic works of art resulting from their life together
“[A] lavish volume. . . . Illuminating. . . . MacDonald’s deep research has . . . unearthed important new facts.”—Gioia Diliberto, Wall Street Journal
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.