Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NEW YORK, June 17 (UPI) -- The centenary of James McNeill Whistler's death is being marked by an exhibition at the Frick Collection of paintings and prints that focus on the artist's preoccupation with women and women's fashions, which he sometimes designed for his favorite models. This unusual theme of fashion-consciousness - Whistler always attired himself as a dandy - is explored thoroughly in "Whistler, Women, and Fashion." It includes a select group of oils on canvas and more than 60 works on paper ranging from preparatory studies, costume designs, and intimate portraits in watercolor to all aspects of the famous American expatriate artist's career as a printmaker. Advertisement Whistler (1834-1903) left the United States to pursue his interest in art when he was 21 and unhappy with his prospects as a West Point cadet after three years of military studies. He lived the rest of his life in London, Paris, and Venice and became one of the few American artists to make a name for himself in Europe before he became known in his native land. Advertisement The show at the Frick, which runs through July 13, started with three portraits of women from the gallery's permanent collection and brings together a total of eight full-length female portraits and two smaller oils from the mid-1860s to the mid-1890s. Most of these works fall in the categories that Whistler called his "arrangements" and "symphonies" in a range of low-keyed color tones. The earliest on display is "Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl," a pensive three-quarter oil study of Whistler's Irish mistress-model, Joanna Heffernan. She is lovingly depicted with unbound hair in a white summer dress similar in style to the loose gowns favored by the British pre-Raphaelite artists in an era when stiff crinolines were fashionable. Heffernan is posed against a mantel and over-mirror, in which her face is reflected, in the artist's Chelsea home in 1864. The only color in the white painting is provided by a Japanese fan in Heffernan's hand, a spray of pink blossoms, and a blue-and-white Chinese jar. It's a smashing composition, one of Whistler's most tender, unaffected portraits. A similar white Victorian dress with a ruched bodice and sleeves in the Renaissance style is displayed on a mannequin along with three other gowns whose styles echo those in portraits on display. One of them is a magnificent 1890s tea gown made for Mrs. Andrew Carnegie with a full-length box pleat in the back. This was called a Watteau pleat because it often appears in pictures by French 18th century artist Jean Antoine Watteau. Advertisement The Watteau pleat appears in all its graceful glory in the gown worn by Mrs. Francis Leyland in a back-view portrait titled "Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink" painted in the early 1870s. The gown was designed by Whistler himself in chiffon embroidered with scattered rosettes. The painting includes branches of white plum blooms to give it the Japanese effect that Whistler adored and then in vogue. There are portraits that romanticize women or show them as liberated professionals in the modern world. "Mother of Pearl and Silver: The Andalusian" depicts one of Whistler's sisters-in-law with her hair drawn up in a topknot and curled over the ears wearing a Spanish bolero jacket and sweeping long skirt, reflecting the artist's admiration of such Spanish artists as Diego Velazquez and Francisco de Goya. The same sitter is portrayed in "Red and Black: The Fan," in the pose of a femme fatale in a red coat-dress and a long, snaky black feather boa. In contrast, two overly dark portraits titled "Arrangement in Brown and Black" and "Arrangement in Black" depict painter Rose Corder and amateur actress Lady Archibald Campbell in tailored suits, the uniform of a new class of working women inspired by women's riding habits. The Campbell portrait is notable for the bold glance of the lady's eyes and the attention paid to her foot and ankle, a daring detail in 1884. Advertisement Even more daring are two portraits of Lady Valerie Meux, wife of a brewery fortune heir and a lady with a past who liked to be painted glittering with diamonds. In one, she is shown heavily made-up and costumed in a sleeveless black velvet gown lined with white fur over one shoulder, and in the other titled "Harmony in Pink and Grey" she wears in a grey afternoon dress pink-ruffled from the bustle to the floor. Her stance is assertive, and her face wears a pert, pouting expression that contemporary critics described as "mysterious" and "bizarre." The Frick has drawn together an interesting series of watercolors and etching that evidence Whistler's interest in all aspects of the clothing trade. These include pictures of seamstresses, laundresses, a dressmaker's shop, second hand clothing shops, and Venetian glass bead-stringers. Also on display are the artist's masterful lithographs of fashionable ladies including an American, Maude Burke Cunard, wife of a British shipping magnate. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated book ("Whistler, Women, and Fashion," Yale University Press, 224 pages, $50, softcover $30).
