Art History News

The Van Gogh Museum and The Mesdag Collection present the largest European retrospective of work by James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) in thirty years – and the first ever to be held in the Netherlands.

Whistler was one of the most influential and controversial artists of the nineteenth century. He was also a fervent advocate of the idea that art need not serve a moral, social or political purpose, but exists purely for its own beauty.

Dandy and disruptor

Born in the United States, Whistler moved to Paris aged twenty-one and divided his time between Paris and London for nearly fifty years, moving in the circles of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet and Oscar Wilde. He was a master of self-promotion and an outspoken dandy with exquisite taste, acutely aware of his striking presence, and notoriously quarrelsome.

He fiercely defended his artistic vision, even at the cost of bankruptcy. When the critic John Ruskin described his work as like flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face, Whistler sued him for libel – a watershed in art history. He published an account of his many disputes under the revealing title The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. The influential English art critic Roger Fry aptly summarised his attitude:

‘He seemed to be always inaugurating a revolution, leading intransigent youth against the strongholds of tradition and academic complacence.’

Whistler and Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh admired Whistler and mentioned his etchings in various letters. He counted Whistler among the artists he and his brother Theo had ‘loved in our time’. Whistler and Van Gogh shared a fascination with Japanese aesthetics and pushed the boundaries of what art could be. Van Gogh referred to the famous portrait of Whistler’s mother in a letter to his sister Willemien, writing:

‘There’s a painting that Whistler did of his mother which is like that. But above all in our old Dutch paintings we find it sometimes. When I think of Mother she too appears like that to me.’

Whistler and Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh admired Whistler and mentioned his etchings in various letters. He counted Whistler among the artists he and his brother Theo had ‘loved in our time’. Whistler and Van Gogh shared a fascination with Japanese aesthetics and pushed the boundaries of what art could be. Van Gogh referred to the famous portrait of Whistler’s mother in a letter to his sister Willemien, writing:
‘There’s a painting that Whistler did of his mother which is like that. But above all in our old Dutch paintings we find it sometimes. When I think of Mother she too appears like that to me.’

Two exhibitions, one story

In the exhibition Whistler. Dandy and Disruptor, the Van Gogh Museum presents a major retrospective of some 100 works, including one of his most famous paintings: Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother. The exhibition also includes dreamlike nocturnes of the Thames, works from the series White Girls and life-sized society portraits.

In the exhibition Whistler. Loving the Netherlands, The Mesdag Collection focuses on Whistler’s special relationship with the country: the art he produced there – including the famous series of Amsterdam etchings – and his influence on Dutch artists such as Willem Witsen and George Hendrik Breitner.

Whistler had frequent contact with Hendrik Willem Mesdag and visited The Mesdag Collection on his last day in the Netherlands, making The Hague the ideal location for this focus exhibition.

Loving the Netherlands

Whistler felt a close connection with the Netherlands. Rembrandt was his great inspiration, he valued old Dutch paper for the warm glow it gave his etchings, and spent time with Dutch artists. ‘Holland is the country for artists. It has atmosphere’, he wrote. Whistler visited the country at least eleven times between 1863 and 1902.

His Amsterdam Set of etchings from 1889 – made from a boat on Amsterdam’s canals – shows the city transformed into a composition of light, shadow and texture, with the famous gables deliberately excluded from the composition. Whistler himself called this his best work to date.

International collaboration

The exhibition was organised in collaboration with Tate Britain in London, and is curated by Edwin Becker (Van Gogh Museum), Renske Suijver (The Mesdag Collection) and Carol Jacobi (Tate Britain).

Images

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of the Painter, 1872, Oil paint on canvas, 74.9 x 53.3 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, Bequest of Henry Glover Stevens, in memory of Ellen P. Stevens and Mary M. Stevens

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 [also known as Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother], 1871, Oil paint on canvas, 144.3 × 162.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, At the Piano, 1858–59, Oil paint on canvas, 67.6 × 93.4 cm, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Bequest of Louise Taft Semple

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, c.1872–75, Oil paint on canvas, 68.3 × 51.2 cm, Tate, Presented by the Art Fund 1905

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, 1871, Oil paint on wood, 50.2 × 60.8 cm, Tate, Bequeathed by Miss Rachel and Miss Jean Alexander 1972

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt, 1897–98, Oil paint on canvas, 208.6 × 91.1 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Edith Stuyvesant Gerry

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Mother of Pearl and Silver: The Andalusian, 1891–1900, Oil paint on canvas, 191.5 × 89.8 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Harris Whittemore Collection

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Yellow and Gray: Effie Deans, c.1876–78, Oil paint on canvas, 194 × 93 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Gift of M.C. Baroness van Lynden-van Pallandt

James McNeill Whistler, Snow, Amsterdam, 1882, Watercolour on paper, Private Collection

James McNeill Whistler, The Embroidered Curtain, 1889, Etching and drypoint on paper, 24 × 16 cm, Amsterdam City Archives

James McNeill Whistler, Zaandam, 1889, Etching and drypoint on paper, 13 × 21.6 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds

James McNeill Whistler, The Pierrot [from the Amsterdam Set], 1889, Etching and drypoint on paper, 23.1 × 15.9 cm, Amsterdam City Archives

Tightly curated selection highlights iconic imagery, master printers and the evolving possibilities of editioned art

David Hockney (b. 1937)Hotel Acatlan, Two Weeks Later, from Moving Focus (diptych), 1985

Heritage’s April 23 Prints & Multiples Signature® Auction brings together a tightly curated selection of 94 works that underscore the breadth and sophistication of postwar and contemporary printmaking. Anchored by major works from David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell and Lynda Benglis, the sale emphasizes collaboration, technical innovation and the enduring appeal of editioned works by some of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

“This is a very deliberate sale,” says Desiree Pakravan, Heritage’s Consignment Director of Prints and Multiples. “Every work was chosen for its relevance and its ability to represent a defining moment in an artist’s printmaking practice.”

Among the leading highlights is David Hockney’s Hotel Acatlan, Two Weeks Later, from Moving Focus (1985), a vibrant diptych that exemplifies the artist’s ongoing exploration of perception and shifting viewpoints. Published by Tyler Graphics, the work belongs to Hockney’s celebrated Moving Focus series, in which space is fractured and reassembled across multiple panels. Held in the collections of both the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate, London, the composition reflects the artist’s fascination with how time, memory and vision intersect.

A second Hockney, Lithographic Water Made of Lines, Crayon and Two Blue Washes (1978–80), offers a more distilled but equally compelling meditation on surface and illusion. Built from layered marks that evoke the shimmer of light across water, the work demonstrates Hockney’s mastery of the lithographic medium and his enduring engagement with the visual language of Southern California.

“Hockney’s prints are always about more than what they depict,” says Pakravan. “They’re about how an image can be constructed, broken apart and experienced over time.”

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)Mick Jagger, 1975Screenprint in colors on on Arches Aquarelle paper43-3…

The auction also features one of Andy Warhol’s most recognizable and sought-after collaborations: Mick Jagger (1975), a dynamic screenprint that captures the Rolling Stones frontman with Warhol’s signature immediacy and flair. Signed by both Warhol and Jagger, the work occupies a space between portraiture and celebrity artifact, reinforcing the artist’s ability to collapse the boundaries between fine art and popular culture. Examples of the print reside in major institutional collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Tate.

Warhol’s Wild Raspberries (1959), offered here as a complete artist’s book, reveals an earlier, more intimate facet of his practice. Created in collaboration with Suzie Frankfurt and featuring lettering by Warhol’s mother, Julia Warhola, the volume presents a whimsical, satirical take on mid-century culinary culture. With its hand-colored illustrations, gilt embellishments and playful, often absurd recipes, Wild Raspberries anticipates many of the themes that would define Warhol’s later work: repetition, surface and the performance of taste.

From a different trajectory within postwar art, Joan Mitchell’s Trees IV (1992) stands as a powerful late-career statement. The monumental diptych, also produced with Tyler Graphics, translates Mitchell’s gestural, painterly language into the print medium without sacrificing its intensity. Sweeping passages of color and mark evoke landscape without describing it, placing the work in dialogue with both Abstract Expressionism and the technical possibilities of large-scale lithography.

The sale’s contemporary selections extend that conversation into more recent decades. Raymond Pettibon’s Untitled (A Sea of Grinding Tectonic Plates…) (2008) pairs his characteristic text with a turbulent visual field, merging literary and graphic elements into a work that feels at once immediate and expansive. The result is a distinctly modern form of narrative printmaking, where language and image operate in tandem.

Raymond Pettibon (b. 1957)Untitled (A Sea of Grinding Tectonic Plates…), 2008Lithograph in color…

Complementing the two-dimensional works is a group of three-dimensional editions that further expands the definition of printmaking. Among them is Lynda Benglis’ Ghost Dance (1992), a striking bronze and gold leaf sculpture that captures the artist’s interest in movement, ritual and material transformation. Twisting and luminous, the form retains the immediacy of gesture while achieving a sense of permanence and weight.

Additional highlights include a selection of Pablo Picasso ceramics, which bridge the gap between functional object and sculptural form, as well as editions by Alex Katz that reflect the artist’s crisp, graphic sensibility and enduring influence on contemporary figuration.

Throughout the auction, the presence of master printers and publishers, particularly Tyler Graphics, underscores the collaborative nature of printmaking at the highest level. These partnerships enabled artists to push the boundaries of scale, color and process, resulting in works that are as technically ambitious as they are visually compelling.

“Printmaking has always been a space for experimentation,” Pakravan says. “What this sale shows is how artists across generations have used editions not as secondary works, but as primary expressions of their ideas.”

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