Based in New York, the Frick Collection is one of the most important art museums in the USA. Currently closed for a refit, a part of its collection can now be seen at the Musée d’Orsay (close to our hotels) for a special temporary exhibition – James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Masterpieces of the Frick Collection, New York.

It’s the first time that these works have left the USA for over a century…

The American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) spent time in France and England as well as his native country, and it’s in Paris that he learned how to paint, from 1855 to 1859.

Between 1914 and 1919, steel magnate, collector and patron of the arts Henry Clay Frick fell in love with the painter’s work – he didn’t buy just one painting, but eighteen of them! Whistler suddenly became one of the most popular artists of the era.

The Musée d’Orsay is making the most of the temporary closure of the Frick Collection and showing twenty-two of Whistler’s works, including four paintings (including a wonderful landscape scene called The Ocean, painted by Whistler in Chile), three watercolours and twelve etchings made in Venice, together with three large portraits belonging to the Musée d’Orsay, one of which is the famous portrait of the artist’s mother.

If you want to learn more about the organisation of the exhibition (in French), curator Paul Perrin will be in conversation on 4th March 2022 at midday (free, but booking essential here).

In addition, a catalogue of the exhibition also written by Perrin will be published on 23rd February 2022 – 96 pages, 30€, here at amazon.fr.

You can get a quick glimpse of a few pages below…

The exhibition James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Masterpieces of the Frick Collection, New York is at the Musée d’Orsay (here) until 8th May 2022

Open every day except Mondays from 9.30am-6pm (9.45pm Thursdays)

Admission: 16€ / 13€

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