James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Tête-à-Tête in the Garden
1894

Name: Tête-à-Tête in the Garden
Brand: James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Price: 7000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Tête-à-Tête in the Garden. 1894. Lithograph. Way 54, Levy 85, Tedeschi, Stratis and Spink 90. 8 x 6 1/2(sheet 10 7/8 x 8 1/2). Edition of 25-lifetime impressions plus a few proofs recorded by Way (Goulding printed 30 posthumous impressions in 1904, after which the stone was erased). A foxing spot, otherwise excellent condition. Printed on ivory laid paper from an antique volume, numbered 178 recto and 177 versos, lower right. A well-inked lifetime impression of this extremely scarce print. Signed with the butterfly in the stone. Housed in an archival French mat and a dramatic 18 1/2 x 16 1/4-inch gold and black frame with a subtle gray lip. According to Joseph Pennell, the figures seated in the garden at Whistler's home at 110, rue de Bac, Paris, are Ethel Birnie Philip, Whistler's sister-in-law, and her husband Charles Whibley. According to Tedeschi, Stratis and Spink "Whistler wrote to the New York dealer Edward Kennedy sending him a list of 'new and beautiful lithographs' that were to be mailed to New York from Paris two days later. Among the prints in the shipment were two impressions of Tête-à-Tête in the Garden. As far as can be determined, the Ways never reprinted the lithograph after the original set of twenty-five impressions (plus a few proofs) was pulled in July 1894." (pages 277, 279). Stratis, Spink and Tedeschi write, p. 279: "According to T.R. Way, Whistler drew [The Little Cafe au Bois] this nocturnal scene of men and women gathering at an outdoor café-chantant in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. It is something of a compositional pendant to Tête-à-Tête in the Garden (cat. no 90), drawn about the same time: both are casually grouped figures seated outdoors, and in both the artist experimented with different ways of using the white of the paper to represent light. In Tête-à-Tête in the Garden, an overall suffusion of bright afternoon sunlight is evenly dappled with the cast shadows of the surrounding foliage. In The Little Cafe au Bois, Whistler rendered the effect of artificial illumination at night by assertively using the lithographic crayon to establish a complex, alternating pattern of light and dark." One of the most significant figures in American art and a forerunner of the Post-Impressionist movement, James Whistler is celebrated for his innovative painting style and eccentric personality. He was bold and self-assured, and quickly developed a reputation for his verbal and legal retaliations against art critics, dealers, and artists who insulted his work. His paintings, etchings, lithographs and pastels epitomize the modern penchant for creating "art for art's sake," an axiom celebrated by Whistler and others in the Aesthetic movement. They also represent one of the earliest shifts from traditional representational art to abstraction that is at the heart of much of modern art.

Creator:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903, American)

Creation Year:

1894

Dimensions:

Height: 18.5 in (46.99 cm)Width: 16.25 in (41.28 cm)Depth: 1.2 in (3.05 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

American Modern

Period:

Late 19th Century