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James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born on July 11, 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts, in northeastern United States.
His father was George Washington Whistler and his mother, Anna Matilda McNeill. His father, an engineer, was employed on the railroad in Saint Petersburg in the Russian Empire.
The young Whistler is enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts where he learns French but retains his American nationality.
He moved to London in 1848 but after the death of his father he returned with his mother to Connecticut.
Dismissed from the West Point Military Academy in 1854, he left to study painting in Paris and prepared for the entrance examination to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Bazille.
In 1859, he moved to London where he would spend most of his life. A worldly dandy, he presents himself as a ruined southern aristocrat.
His painting «La Dame en blanc» refused at the Royal Academy caused a sensation at the Salon des Refusés alongside Manet’s «Déjeuner sur l’herbe». Fascinated by Velasquez and Spanish painting, he wanted to go to Madrid but his trip was interrupted. He participated in arms trafficking during the war between Spain and Chile.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler The Beggars
Etching and drypoint on wove paper 30,3 × 21 cm
Henry Clay Frick Bequest, 1915.3.51 The Frick Collection, New York photo: © Joe Coscia Jr.