Whistler: A Biography
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Binding: Hardback; clean and structurally sound, showing minimal shelf wear to edges and corners.
Jacket: Dust jacket is intact with minor signs of age-appropriate light creasing and slight sunning to the spine.
Pages: Clean and unmarked, with light tanning consistent with the age of the paper.
Markings: No internal annotations, signatures, or institutional stamps; binding remains tight.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler emerges in this definitive biography as one of the most notoriously brilliant, combative, and misunderstood figures of the nineteenth-century art world. Stanley Weintraub masterfully chronicles the life of the man who, despite his American origins, defined himself through his tempestuous expatriate existence in London and Paris. From his ill-fated time at West Point to his legendary "Nocturnes" and his bitter, high-profile legal battles—most famously with the critic John Ruskin—Weintraub captures the relentless wit and fierce, often destructive, pride that fueled Whistler’s artistic genius.Beyond the portrait of a singular individual, this work provides a vivid exploration of the volatile intersections between art, ego, and society during the Victorian era. Weintraub expertly balances the intimate details of Whistler’s personal feuds and shifting alliances with prominent figures like Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley against the broader context of the evolving art market and the transition toward modernism. It is a compelling study of a man who viewed his life as a work of art and his enemies as his primary audience, written with the scholarly rigor and narrative flair expected of a preeminent biographer.
Author: Stanley Weintraub
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Binding: Hardback; clean and structurally sound, showing minimal shelf wear to edges and corners.
Jacket: Dust jacket is intact with minor signs of age-appropriate light creasing and slight sunning to the spine.
Pages: Clean and unmarked, with light tanning consistent with the age of the paper.
Markings: No internal annotations, signatures, or institutional stamps; binding remains tight.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler emerges in this definitive biography as one of the most notoriously brilliant, combative, and misunderstood figures of the nineteenth-century art world. Stanley Weintraub masterfully chronicles the life of the man who, despite his American origins, defined himself through his tempestuous expatriate existence in London and Paris. From his ill-fated time at West Point to his legendary "Nocturnes" and his bitter, high-profile legal battles—most famously with the critic John Ruskin—Weintraub captures the relentless wit and fierce, often destructive, pride that fueled Whistler’s artistic genius.Beyond the portrait of a singular individual, this work provides a vivid exploration of the volatile intersections between art, ego, and society during the Victorian era. Weintraub expertly balances the intimate details of Whistler’s personal feuds and shifting alliances with prominent figures like Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley against the broader context of the evolving art market and the transition toward modernism. It is a compelling study of a man who viewed his life as a work of art and his enemies as his primary audience, written with the scholarly rigor and narrative flair expected of a preeminent biographer.