OIL
In 1905 the most important and successful show in the career of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers was given; the Memorial Exhibition of the works of James McNeill Whistler. For complete success it lacked only the co-operation of Whistler's executrix, which the Council originally understood was promised, but which was ultimately withheld. Still, it was the most complete exhibition of his works ever given, superior from every point of view to the small show at the Scottish Academy the previous year, in many respects to the Boston show of the same year, and to the Paris Memorial Exhibition, 1905, which was disappointing. As can be seen from the elaborate catalogue, more especially the beautifully illustrated édition de luxe published by Mr. Heinemann, the exhibition at the New Gallery contained nearly all the principal oil-paintings, the largest collection of etchings ever shown together, all but one or two of the lithographs, and many of the pastels, water-colours, and drawings.
Footnotes
[12] Sir Henry Cole, in the early sixties, had five international shows at South Kensington.
CHAPTER XLIV: THE ACADÉMIE CARMEN.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN NINETY-EIGHT TO NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE.
In the autumn of 1898 a circular issued in Paris created a sensation in the studios. Whistler was going to open a school, the Académie Whistler. The announcement was made by his model, Madame Carmen Rossi. Whistler at once wrote from Whitehall Court, where he was staying (October 1, 1898), to the papers "to correct an erroneous statement, or rather to modify an exaggeration, that an otherwise bona fide prospectus is circulating in Paris. An atelier is to be opened in the Passage Stanislas, and, in company with my friend, the distinguished sculptor, Mr. MacMonnies, I have promised to attend its classes. The patronne has issued a document in which this new Arcadia is described as the Académie Whistler and further qualified as the Anglo-American School. I would like it to be understood that, having hitherto abstained from all plot of instruction, this is no sudden assertion in the Ville Lumière of my own. Nor could I be in any way responsible for the proposed mysterious irruption in Paris of whatever Anglo-American portends. 'American,' I take it, is synonymous with modesty, and 'Anglo,' in art, I am unable to grasp at all, otherwise than as suggestive of complete innocence and the blank of Burlington House. I purpose only, then, to visit, as harmlessly as may be, in turn with Mr. MacMonnies, the new academy which has my best wishes, and, if no other good come of it, at least to rigorously carry out my promise of never appearing anywhere else."
Whistler had nothing to do with the financial management, everything with the system of teaching, and he said that he proposed to offer the students his knowledge of a lifetime. It may be, as we have heard, that he had been asked, with MacMonnies, to criticise the work of Ary Renan's or Luc-Olivier Merson's students, and that this gave him the idea of visiting a school under his own direction.
The Passage Stanislas is a small street running off the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs; No. 6, a house of two storeys and a courtyard or garden at the back which was afterwards covered with glass. Over the front door the sign Académie Whistler did appear, but only for a short time. The glazed courtyard became a studio, and there was another above to which a fine old staircase led. The house had been built, or adapted, as a studio, and, except that the walls were distempered, no change was made. The rooms were fitted up with school furniture; for this, we believe, Whistler advanced the money. Within a few days a vast number of pupils had put their names down, deserting the other ateliers of Paris. Some left the English schools, and still others came from Germany and America. Whistler was delighted, telling us that students were coming in squads, that the Passage was crowded, and that owners of carriages struggled with rapins and prize-winners to get in.