So good afternoon everyone. And thank you for joining us today for the first virtual fall event in University of Delaware, monthly scholar in the library lecture series. This lecture is being recorded for, just for your information. I'm Amanda Xander, Chief Curator for museums, part of University of Delaware library museums and press. This noon. I'm pleased to introduce Professor Margaret status, whose lecture is titled Whistler afterlives JM whistler is lasting cultural legacy. Today's talk complements the exhibition, friends and enemies, Whistler and his artistic, literary, and social circles. The exhibition is currently available as an online exhibition, and the link is provided in the chat and it will be installed an old college gallery and upcoming semesters. The exhibition is a collaboration between the museums, the mark Samuel's last NOR collection and Special Collections at University of Delaware. It was curated by Mark Samuel's last Center Senior Research Fellow in special collections. Ashley Reich, opec, curator of education and outreach for museums and myself. Friends and enemies explores whistler is placed in the cultural world and Paris and London and traces famous controversies such as whistler is libel lawsuit against art historian John Ruskin and his verbal sparring with Oscar Wilde. The exhibition has at its core, Whistler, James and lithograph juxtaposed with works on paper, photographs, books, periodicals, and ephemera by his associates and the followers who helped ensure his legacy. Dr. Margaret steps is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at The University of Delaware. She's the author of more than 120 essays, as well as have several books and exhibition catalogs. And she has curated numerous exhibitions on late Victorian print culture. In 2015, she was named by the magazine, diverse issues in higher education to its list of top 25 women in higher education. And she has asked me to tell you He's here today to try to live up to that. We have asked Dr. stats to save the last few minutes of today's event and for any questions that the audience might wish to submit in writing using the Q and a function in zoom. And so without further ado, please join me in welcoming Dr. Margaret steps, who will speak with us about whistler is afterlives. Welcome, Dr. stats. Oh, thank you. Wow. Why? Here we are. I hope you can all hear me. And if you can't, there's nothing I can do about that. So thank you very much. A band and Vicki white and everyone connected with the huge library, museum. And with U Ds Department of IT, and especially Joe Dombrowski who have helped to make this talk possible. But I would like to thank especially my two research assistance. Oscar Wilde doll, Take a bow, Oscar and James McNeill, Whistler, bobbleheads, take a bottle Jimmy. The title of the wonderful exhibition on the University of Delaware is website, refers to Whistler, friends and enemies. And whistler placed Oscar Wilde in both categories. Now, if I had titled my talk today, Oscar Wilde's after volumes, wilds, lasting cultural legacy. Everyone would know precisely what to expect. Because we all understand that wild has had a lasting cultural legacy. And we may even think we know what that is. Certainly the manufacturers of the Oscar Wilde doll accompany called the unemployed philosopher his guild thoughtful gift. Thinking people based in Brooklyn, New York felt confident in summing up wild story onto a little tag that you can see here next to his green carnation. They have crammed quite a lot. Mentioning that he was quote, one of the greatest celebrities of his day, that he was famous for his quote whipped and his writing. And that he was quote, imprisoned after being convicted of gross indecency, a euphemism for homosexuality, which was illegal in England, end quote. And that he quote, died penniless in Paris at the age of 46. We are pointed here toward a transnational cultural afterlife that involves not only literature and the phenomenon of celebrity, foot politics and the history of sexuality. We buy this doll knowing why wild is still importance. And the very existence of the doll affirms that continuing importance. But what of the whistler boggle head? It comes with no tag, no tributes, no biography of some chips, no explanation for why this item exists. Those who purchase it may or may not recognize the costume. It's roughly what Whistler war and a caricature by Leslie ward that appeared in the British, British magazine Vanity Fair in 1878. Except that in this version, Whistler isn't carrying a walking stick, but a paintbrush. And what seems to be a pop of paint. I'd like to think it's an illusion to what? An illusion. It, that it's an allusion to what the great Victorian art and social. John Ruskin said imprints about listeners. 1875, painting Nocturne in black and gold, the Falling Rocket, which he despised. That it represented Whistler having the gall to charge 200 guineas, which is about 25 thousand pounds today, for quote, flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. And quote, when Whistler read that, he sued rough skin for liable, perhaps here in the hand of my Marblehead. Is that very pot. And Jimmy, please don't fling it at the zoom screen. I'm putting him down so he want but again, there's no tag, label, or accompany in flyer to tell us anything about how Whistler has been represented here, why he has come back as a bubble hint, or whether this object fits within any broader cultural legacy. Which means we will have to look elsewhere to learn about whistler is after lives in the 117 years since his death in 1903. The first thing to note that not everyone has wanted Whistler to have an afterlife or thought he was deserving of one. Mr. Dombrowski, May I have the first slide, please? There is wonderful technology, but let us hear it works. This caricature Wisner and by the American satirical artist David Levy, was printed in an August 1974 issue of The New York Review of Books. It accompanied an article by Douglas Cooper that reviewed two biographies of Whistler, one by Stanley wine trout and the other by Roy McMillan. Douglas Cooper was a major British art critic, collector and Devo TE of Pablo Picasso. His purpose in writing this review, however, was not so much to comment on the biographies as to destroy. Whistler is posthumous reputation, as he put it. And I quote from, whistler, is one of the most insubstantial, perverse and ultimately pathetic artists for whom a rightful place has to be found in 19th century history. When his life's work is Judge dispassionately on the basis of the originality of his vision, his technical ability, and what he actually achieved. It cannot be rated very highly. In quote. He went on to assert that quote, whispers idea of himself was far in excess of his abilities. And ultimately therefore, we can shuffle Whistler off the stage of art history in a few lines. A gentleman painter of small importance and quote, well, an artist of small importance would not continue to inspire exhibitions. 26 years after this attempt at bowl dosing over his grave, let alone fuel the creation and sale of bobbleheads. Cooper was unsuccessful as Ruskin at Whistler, reputation killing and popular interests in Whistler persists. But what sort of popular interests? In what shape? Through what medium? Next slide, please. As you might expect, there have been numerous coffee table books and mini coffee table books featuring dozens of color plates. Often books produced by art historians writing for a mass market, such as Avis Berman's lovely book, first impressions from 1993, published by Abrams. Next slide please. And of course, the biography industry has been active with everything from the 1994 volume, Whistler behind the NIF by two British art historians, Ronald Anderson and, and Coval, who did not share Douglas Cooper's low opinion of their subject to Daniel E. Sutherland, 440 page long biographical door stopper, a life for art's sake, published by Yale University Press in 2014. It is worth pointing out that Daniel Sutherland is an academic, but a historian who specializes in the American 19th century. Not an art historian, which suggests more to the ongoing scholarly interest in Whistler than merely the study of his artworks or deciding his place in the canon. But even more people are likely to have seen, whether it's school or at home, documentary films about Whistler, than to have read books such as these. At the moment. To such films are available as DVDs. And the advertising copy on the DVD cases may help us to establish what sort of cultural legacy the makers of these documentaries, things he embodies. Next slide please. This film made by Chrome well productions in 2 thousand and distributed by culture International, which is an American company in its series called The great artists, romantics and realists, is clearly aimed at undergraduate art history classes and their professors. The DVD case promises, quote. Commentary and analyses from leading authorities and discusses with almost wholly in terms of where he might fit within an introduction to Western Art, Of course, he's talked about here as quote, a talented engraver who produced numerous etchings, lithograph, and drive wheels. He has praised as having been quote, the four runner of abstract arts. And his quote reputation today is said to rest on quote, nocturnal scenes and highly stylized portraits, in which there is a radical emphasis on composition at the expense of subject matter and quote. And the film is, dare I say it's about as exciting as that description sounds. Next slide plume is very different in tone and address, as well as slant, however, is the information on the DVD case of a documentary film that was shown to a far more general nationwide audience in the US, directed by Karen Thomas in 2014, entitled Whistler case for dealing. The PBS film advertises its subject this way. And I quote the back of the case, quote, caustic whipped man about town. James McNeill Whistler was the original art star, famous for his patent leather shoes Monocle. And of course, if you don't know what a monocle looks like, this is what a monotone looks like. And uptown swagger, Whistler theatrical, attracted the curiosity of buyers and the attention of the critics. But beneath the high gloss and mannered style. The struggle of this pioneering genius to find his own voice resulted in a breakaway style that moved painting towards abstraction and would revolutionize the art world in his time and beyond. And quote, at the close, two such paragraphs of breathless puffery. The ad copy concludes by labeling him a fascinating character. That's a direct quote, a fascinating character. The documentary itself fortunately, is as entertaining as this suggests, and it gives us a better idea of why Whistler keeps enjoying multiple forms of afterlife. Yes, he was a genius. Yes, he was a revolutionary figure in art. But even beyond that, he was a character like Oscar Wilde. He was a celebrity. He self-consciously crafted a culturally dissidents, defiant public persona. And he continues to be associated with a distinctive style. One moreover, that has clear links to later forms of masculine SART tutorial displayed from the zoot suit wearing African American and Latino. Next, hep cats of the 19 forties, the British mods of London's Carnegie Street in the 19 sixties, to the International, often androgynous and gender non-binary new Dandy is of recent years, celebrated in books such as rose Callahan and Nathaniel Adams 2016. We are Dandy, the elegant gentleman around the world. In this way, of course, Whistler and Oscar Wilde, who were sometimes rivals for attention in life, have united long after death as dual and complimentary sources of inspiration. But also moreover, as comic targets and figures of fun. One of the clearest proofs that Whistler lives on is that he exists in the world of comedy and popular entertainment. Next slide, please. Those of you who are elderly as I am, may recognize this still from Monty Python's Flying Circus. In this sketch, the playwright George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and whistler take turns competing to amuse the Prince of Wales, and then to attribute ROS, insults about him to one another. As you can see, whistler is Dandy, is and is on show in the form of lavender colored gloves. In actuality, however, it usually favored chrysanthemum covered gloves, in other words, yellow gluttons. But the main problem here is that whistler is played by John Cleves, who is much too toll. Whistler was merely of average height. And the six foot three Oscar Wilde ought to tower over him. I think the shorter American born Terry Gilliam, should have impersonated the American born J and whistler. This was of course, not the first time that whistler had been used for laughs. Next slide, please. In that hilarious satire of heterosexual relations and transatlantic relations alike, uh, need a looses 1925, gentlemen prefer blondes. The quintessential American gold digger Laura lively takes both her skills at seduction and her other ignorance about everything else. On a trip abroad. Where her first stop is England. There all the aristocrats she encounters are trying to unload family heirloom and pick up some fast cache. As Laura Lai Li, who tries, sorry, who narrates the novel, tells us. And here I will channel my inner Marilyn Monroe, Sui Wen Ti, to a lady's house called Lady swings. And what she has to, so we Americans seems to be a picture of her father painted in oil paint, who she said wasn't wrestler. But I told her my father was a Wisner and used to Rousseau of the time. The joke of course, depends on the 1925 reader being acquainted with the name of Whistler as an artist in Britain who painted portraits, comedy is always an excellent gauge of the extent to which cultural knowledge has been diffused. Next slide, please. One form of comedy that helped to keep Wesley's image before transatlantic audiences throughout the 20th century was musical comedy. Specifically Gilbert and Sullivan's 1881 operetta patients, which satirized late Victorian exponents of the aesthetic movement. That is, of art for art's sake. Generations of theatre goers saw performers such as Martin Green in the role of been Thorn, the arch speeds, costumed and made up either as Oscar Wilde or here, like Whistler, with his Monocle and distinctive tuft of white hair. But the afterlives of Whistler haven't only been focused on the artist himself. They have also involve the works of art he created, which have achieved after lines of their own. Next slide, please. Take for instance, the Peacock room, which is now in Washington, D.C.'s Freer Gallery. That Whistler designed for or rather imposed upon the London House of his very unappreciated patron, Frederick Layland. Next slide, please. This has inspired subsequent creations such as Daron water stuns 2014 installation, filthy looker, which plays upon the title of one of Whistler, is on works in which all the objects in the Peacock room are in decay and decline. Crumbling, turning dark, and falling from the sagging shelves. It is a truly decadent take on listers aesthetic vision. An example not of the evolution over time of a work of art. But of its Devo solution and a winning one. Next slide, please. And I would like to suggest that if the existence of a comic or ironic approach to a work is a measure of how culturally central IT IS, revealing just how widespread the public awareness of it might be. Then another excellent way of discerning its importance is whether it has migrated into the realm of children's literature. Publishers will only invest in a book for young readers about whispers, arts. If they think that parents will buy it for them, if they see it as performing somehow an educational function And so to speak, a culture rating children. Here then from 1993 is a fantasy inspired by the Peacock room, written for a young audience by its former curator at the Freer Gallery. When tomorrow. Next slide, please. And I'm going to stop for a sip of water from a William Morris teacup to keep the aesthetic thing going. Yet another useful yard stick for judging how deeply art has become rooted in the popular imagination is whether it gets tied to the subject of fashion and of course, to the world of Blockbuster museum exhibitions. We have evidence for whistler is engagement with both, especially with this 2003 catalog of an exhibition held in New York at the Frick Collection, Whistler, women and fashion. Next slide, please. And even stronger crossover going right to the heart of fashion journalism and to the queenly domain of Atana winter, sorry, I didn't bring my sunglasses. Comes in a photo spread from the December 2011 issue of Vogue magazine. It commemorates an exhibition in which Whistler figured prominently titled The cult of beauty and a tip of the hat here to its curator, Stephen Callaway. That exhibition traveled from the V and a and London to the Musei, just say in parents to the palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Here, as you can see, wrestlers symphony in white, number one, the white girl painting depicting Joe who was his lover in the 160s, is being celebrated for pref, figuring a white satin designer dress by Chanel couture, with which it shares equals space. If we consider further, the phenomenon of Whistler is works leading their own after one news, sometimes quite separate ones from their creators. And accruing cultural meanings that are not attached to the painter himself. Then we must certainly ponder the extraordinary fate of arrangement in gray and black. Number one, Next slide, please. This, of course, is the 1871 portrait of his mother that Whistler painted at his London studio and Cheney Walk. And that is now owned by the Museo Del say. Anna McNeill Whistler was at the time 67 years old, which happens to be the age I will soon turn. And in the spirit of that Vogue magazine photo spread, I'm thinking it's time for a white cotton day camp trimmed with Bo defi on blades were not. Next slide, please. Whistler is mother, lives on in countless forms, including this charming cookbook produced by the distinguished, distinguished Whistler scholar, Margaret Macdonald. It incorporates Anna McNeill. Whistler is actual recipes transcribed from a manuscript notebook in the University of Glasgow. Next slide, please. For many reasons, as Margaret Macdonald has eliminated in her 2003 study, Whistler smother, American icon, the reception of arrangement in gray and black has taken on a special significance in a US context. In Britain, the painting was recognized from the first as having been deliberately stripped of all sentimentality by Whistler himself. But early in the 20th century, Americans invested it with that missing emotion of mother worship and did so in official foreign. Next slide, please. After the painting traveled to New York in 1934 at the height of the Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw it on display at the Museum of Modern Art's. He suggested that it be reproduced on a postage stamp. But as Monica ten points out in a 2016 article for the Guardian newspaper, it gained in the process a sweet little floral tributes to maternity in that vase in the foreground. And later, as Peter shelled all reports in his 2015 essay titled moms home for The New Yorker magazine. Quote, a civic group in Ashland, Pennsylvania in 1938 erected a monumental tribute. A statue of the seeded Anna on a base inscribed with the words, a mother is the holiest thing alive. And quote, Next slide, please. A more recent and politically very powerful work inspired by whistler is Elizabeth Klein felled, and a pole Julian's photograph from 2014 titled Ode to Joy. Arrangement in gray and black. Number one, it is part of a series called In empathy. We trust that the two New Orleans born photographers who collaborate under the name E2 describe as adapting and I quote, iconic images and re-imagining these pieces in ways that our ancestors never could have dreamed of. Sitters enacting varied representations of, amongst others, race and sexual orientation. In paintings from art history and quote, their project has parallels with the political commentary about history, visuality and racial exclusion that animates gingko shown a barrios photographic suite titled Dorian Gray, inspired by Oscar Wilde's novel from the year 2 thousand. And it is also akin to the marvellous paintings that Cagian day wildly exhibited earlier this year at the William Morris Gallery in London. A series called The yellow wallpaper, which places portraits of 21st century black women as subjects against the designs of William Morris's Victorian floral patterns. Next slide, please. While I drink from my William Morris code. But by far, the greatest number of reuses and re-imagining of Whistler arrangement in gray and black have been comic ones. David Levine, for instance, employed it as background in his caricature for The New York Review of Books. A Philip Roth, eluting the mother dominated protagonist of the author's 1969 novel, port noise complaints. Next slide, please. The great Warner Brothers animator Chuck Jones created this 1991 lithograph titled whiskers mother, in which the seeded subject watches TV to see her son, Bugs Bunny. And from my friends who wondered how I would get rabbits into this talk. This is how Next slide, please. Another genius of popular culture, Jim Hansen gave us the Muppets in 1983. Henry beard and John E. Barrett produced the Book, Miss Piggies, Treasury of art masterpieces from the kermit toddlers collection from that volume is Gonzo entered in arrangement in gray and black with creep. Whistler is weirdo. Next slide, please. As some of you might recall, in the 990s seven film titled Being starring Rowan Atkinson, the perpetually hapless yet unsympathetic character of Mr. Beam. It's an unfortunate run in with whistler is painting, which he has been employed to guard. After sneezing on it at close range. He attempts to clean it by rubbing hard and winds up erasing the subject's face, which he then redraws himself, hoping no one will notice the difference. Next slide, please. And in 2016, The Guardian, the British newspaper, illustrated an article about this painting with an array of parody is found on the Internet, including Mr. beans, masterpiece. Next slide, please. And the final part of my brief survey of whistler is diverse cultural legacy. I would like to turn to literature. There have been numerous works for the theatre inspired by or re-interpreting Whistler, including some by our own, Dr. Joyce heel stone there, Professor of Art Conservation at the University of Delaware, who has written and performed a solo show titled Whistler through the eyes of his women, who also wrote the music and lyrics for the Peacock room. A play with dialogue by dreary pine for. But few of the plays that have put Whistler or his works on stage are available in print. A recent exception is full not beat, which takes its name from a father being recipe popular in Syria and which has been published in the 2018 compilation, the best ten-minute plays among the many re-imagining across the arts that I will mention today. Though, one that makes me uncomfortable. The premise is not the issue in this one act to character play by J value cunning and set in the gallery at the Musee. Don't say where arrangement in gray and black headings and an McNeill Whistler comes to life and has a conversation with a woman employed there as a cleaner. At first, the dialogue seems comic, with the painted figure grumbling about the pain in her lower back from sitting during the long sessions of posing for her son, quote, he wouldn't even let me get up to slip that chamber pot under my skirts. She complains. But then matters turn troubling. What is troubling is the role of the other woman, a refugee from the war in Syria, whose husband, along with several of her children, was murdered by Bashar al-Assad forces. Her characterization raises the usual politically fraught questions about cultural appropriation. Or as Kit to wall, put it in an article for The Irish Times newspaper recently, quote. Not dip your pen in someone else's blood without at least trying to quote, do no harm along the way and quote. But cutting hymns, full not beat also brings up more urgently the potential for real life consequences through reckless and offensive stereotyping in an already Islam of phobic western world. For the Syrian woman here turns out to be a terrorist with a bomb strapped around her waist, ready for vengeance against the West, which abandoned her community and the white savior. Oh, excuse me. The figure in the painting must show her the error of her ways by speaking to her as one mother to another. What do I recommend this play to those interested in Whistler legacy? No. Next slide, please. Fortunately, other imaginative recreations of those close to you and a slur and of Whistler himself are not only less problematic, but far better written. High on that list is Louis Edwards complex challenging novel of 2003. Oscar Wilde discovers America. Edwards, an African American author, has invented the life story which history had erased of the black man who was employed as Oscar Wilde's valets during his lecture tour of America in 1882. But the narrative also keeps track throughout of the young white man with whom the protagonist grew up. An aspiring painter who goes to London and winds up in Whistler studio serving there as his apprentice and disciple. The depiction here of whistler is perhaps the most flattering in recent fiction. His legendary prep, curliness. I used that redeliver deliberately is played down and his willingness to encourage talent and others is played up. Next slide, please. That was Whistler bobbleheads falling down. He did not like my referring to his ***** leanness. Anyone who has ever wish to set a time machine to H and 78 to sit in the courtroom where Whistler brought his libel suit against John Ruskin in response to the ladders savage attack upon human print. Well, this novel is for you. I, James McNeill Whistler, by Lawrence Williams, published in 1972, is written as though it were the artists autobiography. And it pays close attention to Whistler reactions throughout the trombone. Many readers may be surprised at the final section, however, in which whistler is, temperaments suddenly softens. Indeed goes all soggy after his late in life marriage to be a trust God when allegedly a perfect, it'll, This is shattered by her death from cancer. The narrative ends as a disappointingly conventional tail of doomed Romans. But what I found most disappointing was the short shrift given earlier in the novel to Joanna here front in the model for the white girl and other paintings. For Hoover. Lawrence Williams thinks it necessary to devote only two sentences, two sentences to Joanne and different in next slide, please. Joe does not get her do either. In an otherwise appealing revisionist fiction about whistler is treatment of the women around him. But mod Franklin does. In the British author Matthew plan pins 2018 novel, MRS. Wisner. This was the title that Franklin, a much younger woman and an artist herself, who was whistler, is model, domestic partner and mother of two of his illegitimate children, chose to go by while they were together during the late 18 seventies and much of the 18 eighties plant that covers a lot of the same chronological ground as Lawrence Williams, including the period of the libel trial, but from a wholly different angle, reflecting instead the point of view of the distressed and long suffering mod Franklin. Such a fictional perspective allows us to consider the damage done to women who paid the price for depending day-to-day on what that PBS documentary called a quote, fascinating character. Indeed, we meet to such damaged women as the novel follows as well. Rosa quarter, a woman painter who was never for love, I'm sorry, who was the lover of the married and notoriously shady Charles Augustus Howell. Plumping as an NEO Victorian novelist, re-examining history critically, chooses to dismantle the myth of the heroic male genius as a figure, we're the only of reverence. He emphasizes instead, not only what Whistler created, but what he destroyed and cast aside. Next slide, please. Finally, if the effects in Whistler paintings have often been compared to those in music and in poetry. So both Whistler and his works have also inspired poetry. Some of that poetry was collected in 1986 by Paul marks in the slim volume, the elusive butterfly. The writers represented in it range from Ezra Pound to Stephane Mallarme, ME. And two forgotten women, such as Florence, URL codes, whose poem praises Whistler as one who quote, worshiped the ideal. Of course, the collection is called the elusive butterfly because the butterfly was whisked there's own chosen signature on his artworks. And I would like to end therefore with butterflies. Last slide, please. These come from a 2014 autobiography, inverse Brown Girl Dreaming, by the queer black writer Jacqueline Goodson, who is best known for fiction for young readers. While I can't prove that the poem titled The Butterfly poems was a direct response to seeing any works by Whistler. It does come immediately after another poem titled The Selfish giants that is explicitly about falling in love with Oscar Wilde's fairy tale of the same. My Watson gives us memories of childhood and of the discovery made in childhood of the power of art to render things immortal. The poem ends. When I write the first words. Wings of a butterfly whisper. No one believes a whole book could ever come from something as simple as butterfly zones that don't. Even, my brother says live that long. But on paper, things can live forever. On paper. A butterfly never dives. In, quote, on paper. In his drawings and etchings and watercolors, as well as on Canvas. Whistler is butterfly, never dies. But I hope that my brief survey has suggested another kind of immortality to true reception, reinterpretation, and the creation of new works by others. For even if James McNeill Whistler, that fascinating character was Mortal, he has nonetheless enjoyed innumerable afterlives and his cultural legacy is visible everywhere. Thank you. So I can wave to indicate the end of my talk. I know it's not because I'm hot, it's because I'm showing off and this is an affectation. Thank you so much Dr. staff thought was really wonderful for going to transition to a Q and a part of our event today. We already have a few questions. It'll waiting to be answered. First of all, from awhile back, one of our participants, Don Yulen, has asked about the slide that showed the TLT of UT ME. I asked Mr. Dombrowski for number 13. He asks is if the image on the right is, is a Whistler, said by Whistler? Well, what is the whistler? By Whistler, that's the one that has the words, the cult of beauty superimposed upon. I photograph, I think by Stephen my Zell. I think that's who the photograph for tough, sorry, the photographer was for this photo spread in vogue. And that is the one that has the Chanel couture dress in white satin. And instead of the quote, Titian colored hair that had, that was how it was often described. The red hair of Joe hyphen in the model we have on this model, the pink hair for a slightly more punk effect to put these two works of art together. Okay, and then a while back also in the chat screen, somebody has asked, Have you seen this image with an, a link to an image that was by Amy Colombo? It's an I don't know if you can see that in the chat, margaret. Okay. Nope. Yep. We might just move on than for another participant today. Allison Pearlman has had said, First of all, thank you for your wonderful lecture. I'm curious to what extent do you believe whistler is decorative and exhibition strategies have had a lasting legacy. And to what extent has this element men recognized as part of Whistler legacy? Well, this is a question for an art historian and I am not an art historian. I just play one on soon. But certainly Westerners idea of having kind of all encompassing display. And I'm thinking of the Peacock room, obviously, where every element in the room is in harmony with every other element, where you have this sort of unity of vision as opposed to the standard mid Victorian idea. If you see something like William pole Fritz painting of a private view at the Royal Academy in 1881. And it just picture, picture, picture hung any old, which way on the wall? Whistler Peacock room. That notion that everything must work together, I think has been extremely influential. And if we wanted to see an example of that, I think even now, I'm Steven Callaway is Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain has reopened. And that is an excellent example of an exhibition designed to be all of a piece and to be esthetic and decadent. And to have everything make a single IP. Question On the viewer. Okay, we have two and a rho, two brief ones in a row by Bonnie, Greg, did Whistler and wild ever makeup and each die penniless. And then her follow-up question was, what was his relationship with his mother? Ok. Whistler and wild. Whistler looked upon wild at first as a disciple. And wild laid up that role of disciple. He was 20 years younger. But as wild became more independent and more famous himself, this really got under his skin. So yes, they did have a sort of contentious relationship for a while. Matthew Sturgis is marvelous. New biography of Oscar Wilde. Oscar, a Life published in 2018, says that at the time of the trials in 1895, when Oscar Wilde was accused of so-called gross indecency with men. One of their mutual friends sent word that Whistler felt sorry for him and had only good things to say about him. And this is a surprise because some people have insisted that Whistler never felt any sympathy for wild and didn't care what happened to him in the trials. Not according to Matthew Sturgis. And I think that's a lovely correction. Whistler and his mother. Well, here's another problem with that full not beats play by J. Value Cunningham. It presents listeners mother, the picture on the wall that comes to life starts talking as having been really unhappy that Whistler became a painter instead of doing something more manly and not, and so help me. The dialogue is something like but he didn't go whoring and didn't do these manly things. Just the opposite. Anna McNeill Whistler was extremely puritanical. She wanted Whistler to be a minister. I mean, if you can imagine Whistler in the pulpit, This is a really weird concept. And their relationship was difficult because whistler was living with women to whom he was not married and he sort of had to hide that fact when she came over from the States to London and seem to be living a more respectable wife. So this was a point of tension and contention and contestation between them that she was a lot more straight lace than he was. Thank you, Margaret, with an eye on the clock, will try do one or two more questions. We've, unfortunately, we have a long list of wonderful questions and we're not probably gonna be able to get to all of them. So we do want to end pretty promptly at one. Now, so this next question is from David Taylor Whistler and wasn't radical, that he owe anything to those other radicals, the pre-Raphaelite. Well, this is a subject that David Taylor knows more about than I do. And I want to put in a plug for his new book about the Washington family, published by Lexington books, remanent Littlefield, David tailored, great book, Whistler. It's relationship with the pre-Raphaelite was this frog is his relationship with everybody else. He was great friends with Rosati. They were practically neighbors in Cheney Walk and Chelsea. And he had, let us say, mixed relations with Burn Jones. And as many of you know, during the trial when wr brought suit against Ruskin for liable, Edward Burn Jones, who is the center of the pre-Raphaelite circle, testified on behalf of Ruskin instead of on behalf of Whistler. And this certainly created a permanent breach, to say the least. So, yeah, Whistler gained a lot from the pre-Raphaelite, but I never wanted to. He never wanted to admit that he learned anything from anyone else. Yeah, that's one of his charms, his other other arrogance. It's one of the things that made him really a pain to live with. And all tributes hats off to the women who put up with that. But it's also, I mean, it's That's Whistler. Whistler. You know, he bowed to no one except to you, the audience to say, thank you. Thank you for attending this talk. Thank you for your kindness in being here. Thank you, Andrew. Alright, thank you Margaret. That was really wonderful and insightful and thank you for answering all these wonderful questions and we really don't have time to get to all of them. Unfortunately. I am just going to say a few concluding remarks. So thank you all for participating and thank you again. Professor stats. Please join us for the next scholar in the library on October 14th at noon, which will also be held virtually. The speaker will be david KE read law sick, chairperson, and James are souls Professor of Political Science and International Relations. His talk is titled Fake news and attack ads. Political psychology tells us why neither will disappear. For more information on other events we have coming up. I encourage you all to visit the calendar on our website. Library, library.edu dot or excuse me, library dot u del.edu. Right. And thank you everybody. And we very much appreciate you attending today. Thank you. Bye-bye.

"Whistler's Afterlives: J.M. Whistler's Lasting Cultural Legacy" with Margaret Stetz on Sept. 9, 2020

From Joseph Dombroski September 16, 2020

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Like his contemporary and “frenemy” Oscar Wilde, artist J.M. Whistler has left a lasting cultural legacy that has spread in many unexpected directions. He haunts 20th- and 21st-century fiction, poetry and drama. He has been the subject of recent documentary films. He even turns up in such unlikely places as the world of the culinary arts in Whistler's Mother's Cook Book.

During this talk, Professor Margaret Stetz to survey Whistler’s varied representations and to consider what has made him such a dynamic and long-lasting presence in Western imagination.

This lecture is in conjunction with the exhibition Friends and Enemies: Whistler and His Artistic, Literary and Social Circles, which will be on view during Fall 2020 and Spring 2021.

Margaret Stetz is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and a professor of humanities at the University of Delaware. In addition to books, exhibition catalogues and co-edited essay collections, she has published more than 120 essays on topics such as Victorian feminism, the politics of animated films, British modernist literature, Oscar Wilde and women writers, and neo-Victorian dress. In 2015, Stetz was named one of the top 25 women in U.S. higher education by the magazine Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

Department Name: Library, Museums and Press
Date Established: September 09, 2020
Appears In: Scholar In The Library - Library Museums and Press

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