Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets & the Career of James McNeill Whistler

by Grischka Petri

Ever since John Ruskin dismissed James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) as a coxcomb asking exaggerated prices for bad paintings, the American artist has been labelled an entrepreneurial self-promoter. For the first time, this study examines in detail the economic side of Whistlers entire career. The artists professional trajectories are traced with the help of a database recording prices for his works between 1855 and 1903, making the structure of his international lifetime markets transparent. The book analyses Whistlers exhibition strategies in London, Paris and New York, and the artists relationships with patrons and institutions. Whistlers transactions with art dealers, commercial galleries and collectors are examined, and business aspects of his artistic decisions are discussed together with commercial implications of the Aesthetic Movement. Whistler emerges as a first modernist successfully making up strategies of distinction. A complement to the existing Whistler catalogues raisonnes and biographies focusing on the aspect of art economy, this study is a valuable reference work. 'Arrangement in The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler' has been awarded the Lempertz Prize for Art History.

790 pages, Hardcover

Published October 31, 2011