James McNeill Whistler (1839–1903), the expatriate American artist, was a prolific and innovative painter, watercolorist, and printmaker. Throughout his lively career Whistler was known as a discerning collector of Japanese prints and as a quick-witted, sharp-tongued advocate of “art for art’s sake.” Whistler’s roots were in Realism, but his approach Modernist; his brand of Realism eschewed narrative and sentimentality and instead set the incidents and characters of the everyday into compositions determined by design, color, and tonal variation. Indeterminate Stillness looks at Whistler through the panoramic range of his prints, which he made throughout his career, creating nearly five hundred etchings in addition to lithographs, linotints, and engravings. This exhibition also celebrates an extraordinary gift by Sharon and Barclay Simpson, avid collectors of Whistler’s graphic work and longtime patrons and supporters of the University of California and particularly of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The Simpsons’ generous gift of seventy-six prints by Whistler spans the thirty-year arc of his career and includes works from Whistler’s most important print series, such as The Thames Set and both major series of Venetian prints.
Later this spring, internationally acclaimed Bay Area artist Robert Bechtle will speak in conversation with Barclay Simpson about Whistler, whose influence Bechtle has long acknowledged.
Lucinda Barnes
Chief Curator and Director of Programs and Collections
