James Abbott McNeill Whistler (July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American-born, British-based painter and etcher. Averse to sentimentality in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". He took to signing his paintings with a stylized butterfly, possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for Whistler's art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, in contrast to his combative public persona.

Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. The house in which he was born is now preserved as the Whistler House Museum of Art. His father, George Washington Whistler, was invited to Russia in 1842 to build a railroad, and James learned French in school while there. At the Ruskin trial (see below), Whistler claimed Russia as his birthplace: "I shall be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in Lowell," he declared. He also attended the United States Military Academy at West Point for several years. His departure from this academy seems to have been due to a failure in a chemistry exam; as he himself put it later: "If silicon were a gas, I would have been a general one day." In European society, he later presented himself as an impoverished Southern aristocrat, although to what extent he truly sympathized with the Southern cause during the American Civil War remains unclear.

Whistler is best known for the nearly monochromatic full-length figure titled Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, but usually referred to as Whistler's Mother. The painting was purchased by the French government and is housed in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Whistler's painting The White Girl (1862) caused controversy when exhibited in London and, later, at the Salon des Refusés in Paris. The painting epitomizes his theory that art should essentially be concerned with the beautiful arrangement of colors in harmony, not with the accurate portrayal of the natural world.

In the 1870s Whistler painted full length portraits of F.R. Leyland and his wife. Leyland subsequently commissioned the artist to decorate his dining room; the result was Whistler's Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, now in the Freer Gallery of Art. The room was designed and painted in a rich and unified palette of brilliant blue-greens with over-glazing and metallic leaf, and is considered a high example of the Anglo-Japanese style.

Artist and patron quarreled so violently over the room and the proper compensation for the work that their relationship was terminated. The entire room was later purchased by industrialist and aesthete Charles Lang Freer, and installed in his collection. The published communications between Freer and Whistler reveal how Whistler's interest in those collecting his work in his native country (The United States) transitioned over many decades.

In 1878 Whistler sued the critic John Ruskin for libel after the critic condemned his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, writing:

:For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay [founder of the Grosvenor Gallery] ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face

At the trail, the lawyer for John Ruskin, cross examined Whistler, "Mr Whistler, tell me, how long did it take you to paint Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket? "Half a day." replied Whistler. "So," continued the lawyer, "you are charging two hundred guineas for half a day's work?" "No." replied Whistler. "For the experience of a life time."

Though suing for one thousand pounds plus costs, Whistler won a mere farthing in nominal damages. The cost of the case, together with huge debts from building his residence, "The White House" in Tite Street, Chelsea, (designed with E. W. Godwin, 1877–8) bankrupted him.

Friendly with various French artists, he illustrated the book Les Chauves-Souris with Antonio de La Gandara. He also knew the impressionists, notably Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas, and was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement. As a young artist, he maintained a close friendship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Whistler's lover and model for The White Girl, Joanna Hiffernan, also posed for Gustave Courbet. Historians speculate that Courbet's erotic painting of her as L'Origine du monde led to the breakup of the friendship between Whistler and Courbet.

In 1888, Whistler married Beatrix, the widow of E. W. Godwin. The five years of their marriage (before her death from cancer) were very happy.

He was well-known for his biting wit, especially in exchanges with his friend Oscar Wilde. Both were figures in the café society of Paris at the turn of the 20th century. It was once said that the young Oscar Wilde attended one of Whistler's dinners, and hearing his host make some brilliant remark, Wilde apparently said, "I wish I'd said that". Whistler riposted, "You will, Oscar, you will!"

A supremely gifted engraver, Whistler produced numerous etchings, lithographs, and dry-points. His lithographs, some drawn on stone, others drawn directly on "lithographie" paper, are perhaps half as numerous as his etchings. Some of the lithographs are of figures slightly draped; two or three of the very finest are of Thames subjects — including a "nocturne" at Limehouse; while others depict the Faubourg St Germain in Paris, and Georgian churches in Soho and Bloomsbury in London. The etchings include portraits of family, mistresses, and intimate street scenes in London and Venice.

Whistler achieved worldwide recognition during his lifetime. In 1884 he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1892 he was made an officer of the Legion d'Honneur in France and he became a charter member and first president of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, & Gravers in 1898.

Whistler's influence was significant, and has been the subject of museum exhibitions and publications. A trip to Venice in 1880 to create a series of etchings not only reinvigorated Whistler's finances, but also re-energized the way in which artists and photographers interpreted the city. His tonalism had a profound effect on many American artists, including John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase. Famous protégés included Oscar Wilde and impressionist painter Walter Sickert; Whistler fell out with both Wilde and Sickert. He successfully sued Sickert in the 1890s over a minor legal issue in France. When Wilde was publicly acknowledged to be a homosexual in 1895, Whistler openly mocked him. Another significant influence was upon Arthur Frank Mathews, whom Whistler met in Paris in the late 1890s. Mathews took Whistler's Tonalism to San Francisco, spawning a broad use of that technique among turn of the century California artists.

Once, after he had suffered a heart attack, a Dutch newspaper incorrectly reported Whistler dead. He wrote to the newspaper, saying that reading his own obituary induced a "tender glow of health".

Whistler published two books which detailed his thoughts on life and art: Ten O'Clock Lecture (1885), and The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890). He was, in turn, the subject of a contemporaneous biography by a friend: the printmaker Joseph Pennell collaborated with his wife Elizabeth Robins Pennell to write The Life of James Mcneill Whistler, published in 1908.

Whistler's belief that art should concentrate on the arrangement of colors led many critics to see his work as a precursor of abstract art.

He is buried at St Nicholas's Church in Chiswick, London.

<gallery> Image:Whistler James Portrait of Whistler with Hat (1858).jpg|Portrait of Whistler with Hat (1858) Image:Whistler James La Vieille aux loques 1858.jpg|La Vieille aux loques (1858) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 001.jpg|At the Piano (1858-1859) Image:Whistler James Brown and Silver Old Battersea Bridge 1859.jpg|Brown and Silver Old Battersea Bridge (1859) Image:Whistler - Drawing Jo.jpg|Etching of Whistler's beloved, Joanna Hiffernan (c.1860) Image:Whistler James Harmony in Green and Rose The Music Room 1861.jpg|Harmony in Green and Rose The Music Room (1861) Image:Whistler James Grey and Silver Battersea Beach 1863.jpg|Grey and Silver Battersea Beach (1863) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 008.jpg|La Princesse du Pay de la Porcelaine (1863-1864) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 013.jpg|Symphonie in White No. 2, Girls in White (1864) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 007.jpg|Harmony in blue and silver: Trouville (1865) Image:Whistler James The Beach at Selsey Bill 1865.jpg|The Beach at Selsey Bill (1865) Image:Whistler James Symphony in White No 3 1866.jpg|Symphony in White No 3 (1866) Image:Whistler James Nocturne in Blue and Gold Valparaiso Bay 1866.jpg|Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay (1866) Image:Whistler James Variations in Pink And Grey Chelsea 1871.jpg|Variations in Pink And Grey Chelsea (1871) Image:Whistler James Arrangement in Grey and Black 1871.jpg|Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist's Mother (1871) Image:Whistler James Symphony in Grey and Green The Ocean 1866-72.jpg|Symphony in Grey and Green The Ocean (1866-72) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 002.jpg|Arrangement in Gray, Portrait of the Artist (Selfportrait) (1872) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 003.jpg|Arrangement in Gray and Black no 2 (Portrait of Thomas Carlyle) (1873) Image:Whistler James Harmony in Grey and Green Miss Cicely Alexander 1873.jpg|Harmony in Grey and Green Miss Cicely Alexander (1873) Image:Whistler James Harmony in Yellow and Gold The Gold Girl Connie Gilchrist 1873.jpg|Harmony in Yellow and Gold The Gold Girl (Connie Gilchrist) (1873) Image:Whistler James Arrangement in Gray and Black No2 1873.jpg|Arrangement in Gray and Black No2 (1873) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 010.jpg|Nocturne in Gray and Gold, Westminster Bridge (c. 1871-1874) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 012.jpg|Nocturne in Black and Gold, The falling Rocket (1874) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 006.jpg|Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge (c. 1872-1875) Image:Whistler James Chelsea Wharf Grey and Silver 1875.jpg|Chelsea Wharf Grey and Silver (1875) Image:Whistler Grau und Gold - Schnee in Chelsea.jpg|Grey and Gold - Snow in Chelsea (1876) Image:Whistler James Nocturne Trafalgar Square Chelsea Snow 1876.jpg|Nocturne Trafalgar Square Chelsea Snow (1876) Image:Whistler James Arrangement in White and Black 1876.jpg|Arrangement in White and Black (1876) Image:Whistler James Arrangement in Yellow and Grey Effie Deans 1877.jpg|Arrangement in Yellow and Grey Effie Deans (1877) Image:Whistler James Venetian Scene 1879.jpg|Venetian Scene (1879) Image:Whistler James The Staircase Note in Red 1880.jpg|The Staircase Note in Red (1880) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 011.jpg|Nocturne in Pink and Grey, Portrait of Lady Meux (1881-1882) Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 004.jpg|Arrangement in light pink and black, portrait of Théodore Duret (1883) Image:Whistler James An Orange Note 1884.jpg|An Orange Note (1884) Image:Whistler James Pink Note The Novelette 1884.jpg|Pink Note The Novelette (1884) Image:Whistler James Mother of Pearl and Silver The Andalusian 1888-1900.jpg|Mother of Pearl and Silver The Andalusian (1888-1900) </gallery>

* Snodin, Michael and John Styles. Design & The Decorative Arts, Britain 1500–1900. V&A Publications: 2001. ISBN 1-85177-338-X.

* Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge (c.1872–5) * Western painting

* Centre For Whistler Studies, Glasgow University * Artcyclopedia entry * Artchive entry * An account of the Whistler/Ruskin affair * Whistler House Museum of Art official web site * Whistler at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut

*James McNeil Whistler by Lisa N. Peters. ISBN 1-880908-70-0. *Whistler: A Retrospective by Robin Spencer. ISBN 0-517-05773-5 *Whistler in Venice by Eric Denker. ISBN 1-85894-200-4 *After Whistler: The Artist and his Influence on American Painting by Linda Merrill, et al. ISBN 0-300-10125-2

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