Lowell’s Whistler House Museum of Art is celebrating the 200thanniversary of its historic 1825 edifice with a comprehensive exhibition of its artists-in-residence and associated studio artists.
The Artist-in-Residence program spans a period from the very early years of the 20th century to today: Artists have the use of a spacious third-floor studio in the historic home in exchange for participating in the museum’s public programming.
Director Sara Bogosian stewards the birthplace of artist James McNeill Whistler in its many missions: as a beautifully furnished, historic home with permanent art collections; as a home base for a Youth Summer Arts Program; as a large exhibition space for local artists; and maintaining a graceful neighborhood park whose focal point is a life size bronze statue of the renegade artist himself.
Whistler barely lived in the United States, preferring London and Paris. The supremely talented draftsman led a bohemian life and was in his day considered radically avant-garde. Today, his iconic oil paintings like “Symphony in White No. 1” — a portrait of his mistress Jo in a white gown — and “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” — aka “Whistler’s Mother” — are viewed as exemplars of 19th century realism. His atmospheric studies of the River Thames and its environs presage both impressionism and abstraction.