Incisive Vision: The Prints of James Abbott McNeill Whistler

This exhibition featured a selection of the 25 prints by Whistler donated to the Smart Museum of Art in 2001. Included are early, middle, and late period etchings and drypoints. These exhibit different stylistic modes—from earlier works influenced by seventeenth-century Dutch art to later orientalizing graphics inspired by Japanese art. Included are individual prints from some of the artist’s most important cycles, including Twelve Etchings from Nature and The French Set. The exhibition also displayed a wide range of Whistler’s preferred subjects, including Thames River views of London, scenes of Venice, portraits, and urban genre scenes.