If you are in the area [Berkshires of Massachusetts].... don't miss this exhibit...it's worth your while.
The exhibition runs till September 27th. An exhibit of nearly 50 Van Gogh works is on display until September 13th.
True story:
In the early 90’s I was working in London and decided to spend a weekend in Paris. The Musee D’Orsay had just opened and I went on in.
Picked up the brochure at the front and didn’t note anything really of importance and started to walk around.
Turned the corner and staring back at me from the wall was this painting.
The French couldn’t bother to put the painting in the brochure!
Some things never change . . .
Funny thing is that the painting was not entitled "Whistler's Mother" by Whistler. He called it merely "Arrangement" but an explanatory addendum was added on first exhibition in 1872 at the 104th
Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art which said "Portrait of the Artist's Mother." in London. People of the period objected to calling a portrait sitting with a person in it a still life "Arrangement" so the popular press critics, liking the painting, started calling it Whistler's "Mother", even though it was not his name for the painting and their popular name for it angered him. A further addendum to the "Arrangement of "in Grey and Black, No. 1" was added in later years because Whistler did a second painting named "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2" and since there was no Whistler painting "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1" the first had to be the Mother painting, the only similar painting done by Whistler.
Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 2.
Two women actually sat for the "arrangement", his mother was the primary model whose face is portrayed, and a young girl, Helena Amelia Lindgren, from next door who substituted for the his mother when she got tired of sitting in the same pose for hours.
