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Who is James Abbott McNeill Whistler?

Self-Portrait (circa 1896)

Though he is not known to have painted or drawn George Moore, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) is counted among Moore’s greatest friends and associates because of his outsize influence and fraught interactions. Along with Walter Pater, Whistler positively led Moore’s aestheticism by example and inspiration.

This is not to say they were close. Whistler was cantankerous; both George and his brother Augustus publicly quarreled with him. Yet no artist was more highly esteemed or frequently juxtaposed with academic painters Moore ridiculed.

Gold and Brown: Self-Portrait (c. 1896-1898) shows Whistler as Moore the art critic knew him in the 1890s.