Whistler’s Irish Catholic model
Many are aware of the artist’s painting of his mother, but the name Joanna Hiffernan is much less familiar.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) famously depicted his mom in his 1871 painting “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1.” In “Anything Goes,” Cole Porter lauded “Whistler’s mama” in the grand company of “the feet of Fred Astaire” and “Inferno’s Dante,” which is high praise indeed. But another woman in Whistler’s life has received considerably less attention—a stated injustice that a new exhibition aims to correct.
I wrote on the exhibit “The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler” (on view until Oct. 10 at Washington’s National Gallery of Art) for National Catholic Reporter in “Whistler’s Catholic muse readies for hazy close-up.”
As I note in the review, the exhibit’s organizers are to be commended for bringing this woman to our attention, but the show obfuscates an already murky situation. There is more work to be done, clearly, and hopefully more materials will become available in the coming years. Here, again, is the link to the article in NCR.
A well written article.
Women in white, especially red-haired women in white: intriguing.