Art on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

In an era of great change and great beauty emerged the character of James McNeill Whistler. Considered by some to be one of the great innovators of 19^th century art, he was a contemporary of the Impressionists, much admired by Van Gogh and Manet. Boldly experimental and famously witty, Whistler disrupted the strict conventions of Victorian society in pursuit of a new cult of beauty, creating “art for art’s sake” and earning himself a place in the history of great art. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies" and "nocturnes", emphasizing the importance of tonal harmony in his work. His most famous painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother, is a revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood.  It is arguably one of the most famous paintings in history and this film will unveil the artist behind the art.

Tate Britain is now holding the first major retrospective of Whistler in three decades.  This blockbuster exhibition promises to reawaken the world to just how important Whistler is to art history, uniting world-famous masterpieces with rarely seen works. Exhibition on Screen will bring these stunning works and the incredible story behind them to cinemas around the world while the exhibition is still running, bringing this truly global artist to a global audience. This will be an unmissable chance to get to know this visually spectacular artist and the influence he has had on those who followed.

"I came to James McNeill Whistler with a lot of preconceptions about his persona. A highly theatrical dandy, prone to egotism, vanity, arrogance and confrontation, he was also a prodigious artist with a brilliant body of beautiful work. His biography was already cinematic, but there was a complexity in his art that I had not appreciated before. A sense of experimentation that made Whistler’s work charismatic and worthy of deeper understanding. His images are meant to be devoid of narrative - “art for art’s sake” - but his extensive writing reveals a driven man for whom art was everything and who was never shy in sharing his thoughts and opinions on the subject. His published words are performative, funny and ironic. Whistler was a loud and fascinating character who lived life to the full. But above all, and despite all the legal scandals and verbal posturing, he was a magnificent painter, printmaker and writer. An extremely proficient and imaginative artist with a gift for creativity and expression that embraced the cult of beauty, pushed the boundaries of painting, and gave birth to modern art."

David Bickerstaff – Director