Van Gogh Museum stages first ever Whistler retrospective in the Netherlands

The Van Gogh Museum and The Mesdag Collection present the largest European retrospective of work by James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) in thirty years – and the first ever to be held in the Netherlands. The project was developed in collaboration with Tate Britain. Whistler was one of the most influential and controversial artists of the nineteenth century. He was also a fervent advocate of the idea that art need not serve a moral, social or political purpose, but exists purely for its own beauty. Born in the United States, Whistler moved to Paris aged twenty-one and divided his time between Paris and London for nearly fifty years, moving in the circles of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet and Oscar Wilde. He was a master of self-promotion and an outspoken dandy with exquisite