James McNeill Whistler

A Radiohead special: we speak to Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood about their upcoming art show

Plus, choreographer Wayne McGregor performance piece at London's Royal Opera House and Whistler's Mother returns to Philadelphia

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack, Aimee Dawson and Julia Michalska
Sponsored byChristie's

Whistler’s career-defining portrait of his mother returns to Philadelphia 142 years after its US debut

The painting commonly referred to as “Whistler’s Mother” will be on view in an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art exploring artists’ portrayals of their mothers

Whistler’s famed Peacock Room, ‘vibrant and revamped’, reopens following major conservation project

The historic interior, with its elaborate avian ornamentation, has undergone months of cleaning and restoration to shore up worn elements and return others to their original lustre

Rejected in 1862, Whistler’s woman in white finally has her day at the Royal Academy of Arts in London

The artist’s portrait of Joanna Hiffernan—once turned down for the RA's Summer Exhibition—is the centrepiece of an exhibition in London, while important works from New York’s Frick Collection head to Paris

Podcastsgallery

Gunpowder, treason and plot: how artists have captured fireworks throughout history

In a special podcast episode we talk to Simon Werrett who has written a book on pyrotechnic arts in European history

Podcastspodcast

Special: Fireworks! Picturing pyrotechnics with professor Simon Werrett

In honour of Bonfire Night in the UK this podcast looks at how artists—from Whistler to Cai Guo-Qiang—have captured fireworks

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by Julia Michalska and David Clack

The score for “turner, whistler, monet”

This show originated last year at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto under the curatorial leadership of Catharine Lochnan, before touring in 2005 to the Grand Palais in Paris and Tate Modern, London. It attracted very large numbers of visitors at all three venues.

Royal Academy and Tate exhibitions heading for top attendance

“Turks: A journey of a thousand years 600-1600” and “Turner, Whistler, Monet” have been wildly successful

Books: a selection of the Art Institute of Chicago's holdings

Painting, design, and decorative arts from Colonial times until the Second World War

From the secret archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum: flinging more than a paint pot

The opening of a file on James McNeill Whistler, embargoed for a century, reveals him to have been a violent brawler, a racist and a gun-runner

Revictorianising Whistler

The artist presented as an eminent contemporary of Ruskin and Morris rather than a prefiguration of abstraction