The Whistler Exhibit at the Smithsonian– Part One

I had gotten up early to see the sunrise over the capital building Wednesday morning from my hotel room, and I was not disappointed.

After visiting several of the new exhibits at the Museum of the Bible, I took the long walk to Old Ebbitt Grill on 15th.  This took a while, crossing the Mall and heading towards the Washington Monument.  The Museum is much close to the Capital end of the Mall than the White House and Washington monument end.  The immediately previous post chronicled what happened at lunch.   But the Smithsonian, back across the Mall is only about a 15 minute walk down 15th St. by the Washington monument.

By American standards, the Smithsonian is one of the grand old museums in the country, with its Victorian like architecture, and it houses so many different things, including a separate art gallery where I was headed to see the new James Whistler exhibit.

Housed in two large rooms in the Freer gallery is an excellent exhibit of some of Whistler’s interesting sketches and paintings and an amazing recreation of his most ambitious work— the Peacock Room, in a house in London.  Whistler was born in Lowell Massachusetts, but from the 1880s on he spent most of his time in Europe as these paintings and drawings will attest.  In America he is most famous for his painting called ‘Whistler’s mother’ but in Europe it is a different story. Here is the introductory sign leading to the exhibit….

And here is his piece d’resistance…