Woman in White

About this book

In 1860, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and Joanna Hiffernan (1839-1886) met and began a professional and personal relationship. Hiffernan posed as a model for many of Whistler's works, including his Symphony in White paintings, a trilogy that challenged viewers with its associations with sex and morality, class and fashion, academic and realist art, Victorian popular fiction, aestheticism and spiritualism. This illustrated volume provides an account of Hiffernan's partnership with Whistler throughout the 1860s and 1870s, a period when Whistler was forging his reputation. A series of essays discusses how Hiffernan and Whistler overturned artistic conventions and sheds light on their interactions with contemporaries, including Gustave Courbet, for whom she also modeled. With insights into the creation, marketing, and cultural context of Whistler's iconic works, this study also traces their resonance for his fellow artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent, and Gustav Klimt. Exhibition: Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (23.02.-23.05.2022) / National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA (03.07.-10.10.2022).