Displaying items by tag: an american in london: whistler and the thames

Scholars have discovered a previously unknown portrait by James McNeill Whistler hidden beneath a painting of a bridge over the River Thames from 1862. The subject is thought to be Whistler’s young mistress and model Jo Hiffernan, who lived with the artist in London for five years. Prior to the discovery, experts believed Whistler created only around six portraits of Hiffernan, including the well-known Symphony in White, No. 1: the White Girl, 1862, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

A major exhibition of paintings and etchings by James McNeill Whistler opens in Washington this weekend—but don't expect to see his mother there.

"An American in London: Whistler and the Thames" spotlights the 19th century American artist's many years in the British capital and his fascination with the storied river than runs through it.

Starting with his vivid depictions of life along the Thames, the show—at the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries on the National Mall—progresses to the moody, virtually abstract twilight images, or Nocturnes, that Whistler began creating around 1871.