Whistler. Dandy and Disruptor

Van Gogh Museum

16 October 2026 - 10 January 2027

James McNeill Whistler is one of the most important artists of the 19th century. With his belief that art – like music – should above all evoke a mood, he helped shape modern art. Alongside his paintings, he is also renowned for his many etchings and drawings, made in cities such as Paris, Amsterdam and Venice.

Whistler’s rebellious nature and strong convictions regularly set him on a collision course with critics and patrons. With his distinctive and innovative art, he was at times considered too progressive – even by avant-garde artists. Whistler spent months, sometimes even years, working on a single artwork, while the final work appears almost effortless.

At the time, the influential English art historian Roger Fry wrote about Whistler:

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

Whistler & 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.’

This retrospective was realised in collaboration with Tate Britain in London. The exhibition James McNeill Whistler, which received widespread critical acclaim, will be on display there from 21 May to 27 September 2026.

The exhibition Whistler. Loving the Netherlands runs concurrently at The Mesdag Collection in The Hague, focusing on Whistler’s time in the Netherlands and work he produced during his visits. 

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. Photocredit: © Detroit Institute of Arts / Bridgeman Images

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother, 1871, Oil paint on canvas, 144.3 x 162.5 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Photocredit: © Musée d’Orsay / RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

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 Silver – Chelsea, 1871, Oil paint on wood, 50.2 × 60.8 cm, Tate, Bequeathed by Miss Rachel and Miss Jean Alexander 1972

James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 3, 1865–67, Oil paint on canvas, 52.0 × 76.5 cm, The Henry Barber Trust, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

James McNeill Whistler, The Last of Old Westminster, 1862, Oil paint on canvas, 61 × 78.1 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, A. Shuman Collection—Abraham Shuman Fund

James McNeill Whistler, The Coast of Brittany, 1861, Oil paint on canvas, 87.3 × 115.6 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, In memory of William Arnold Healy, given by his daughter, Susie Healy Camp

James McNeill Whistler, The Palace: white and pink, 1879/80, Pastel and conté crayon on paper, 19.7 × 30 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund and Patrons’ Permanent Fund

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne, c.1875–78, Oil paint on canvas, 50.6 × 76.7 cm, The White House.

James McNeill Whistler, Brown and Gold: Self-portrait, c.1895–1900, Oil paint on canvas, 95.8 × 51.5 cm, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Bequeathed by Rosalind B. Philip (1958)

James McNeill Whistler, Variations in Violet and Green, 1871, Oil paint on canvas, 61.5 × 36 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

James McNeill Whistler, Rotherhithe, 1860, Etching on paper, 27.6 × 20 cm, Joan M. Winchell Collection / Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Gift of the Art Institute of Chicago