Joanna Hiffernan, Whistler’s ‘Woman in White’: Writing Our Own Stories

James McNeill Whistler - Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl

‘My painting simply represents a girl dressed in white standing in front of a white curtain.’
James McNeill Whistler 

A little while ago I attended a small exhibition focusing on James McNeill Whistler’s paintings, prints and sketches of one particular woman: Joanna Hiffernan. (‘Whistler’s Woman in White’ was at the Royal Academy, London.)

Most famously Hiffernan featured in Whistler’s 1862 painting ‘The Woman in White.’ But as his friend, model, lover and executive assistant over two decades, she appeared in many of his other works.

Whistler’s paintings of Hiffernan are radiant and beautiful. Combining realism with aestheticism, they introduced a new chapter in modern painting. And they prompt reflections on our ability to tell our own stories.

Hiffernan was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1839, one of five daughters to a teacher. Along with thousands of other poor Irish immigrants at the time, the family moved to London when she was about 5.

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1834, the son of a railway engineer, Whistler left America aged 21 to study art in Paris, before settling in London in 1859. The following year he met Hiffernan, who was earning money as an artist’s model. 

‘She has the most beautiful hair that you have ever seen! a red not golden but copper – as Venetian as a dream!’
James McNeill Whistler in a letter to Henri Fantin-Latour

The couple moved into lodgings in Rotherhithe and were soon at the heart of London’s creative scene, attending parties, gallery openings and seances together. 

Whistler meanwhile worked on his definitive painting of Hiffernan and submitted it, under its original title ‘The White Girl,’ to the Royal Academy annual exhibition in 1862.

‘The White Girl has made a great sensation – for and against.’
Joanna Hiffernan 

Wearing a white muslin dress, Hiffernan stands against a white damask curtain and on top of a bearskin rug. She has long, loose, copper-coloured hair, big green eyes and full lips. Composed and thoughtful, she holds her arms by her sides and a white lily in one hand.

The picture is enigmatic. Viewers are left to interpret her dreamy expression, her casual posture, the lightly held lily and the vanquished bear.

‘Some stupid painters don’t understand it at all, while Millais for instance thinks it splendid, more like Titian and those old swells than anything he has seen – but Jim says that, for all that, the old duffers may refuse it altogether.’
Joanna Hiffernan 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, 1864.

Hiffernan was right. ‘The White Girl’ was rejected, first by the Royal Academy, and then by the Paris Salon. These institutions were perhaps confused by its understated colours, muted mood and lack of narrative.

‘The picture should have its own merit, and not depend on dramatic, or legendary, or local interest… As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight.’
James McNeill Whistler

Now living with Hiffernan in Chelsea, Whistler painted her in white again – first standing by the fireplace, holding a Japanese fan, glancing at her reflection in the mirror; and then accompanied by another woman, reclining on a sofa and staring straight out at us. 

When these three ‘Symphonies in White’ were eventually exhibited, they benefitted from an association with the recent Wilkie Collins bestseller ‘The Woman in White’ (which Whistler claimed never to have read). They created a popular sensation, marking a turning point in the artist’s career.

Whistler went on to paint and sketch Hiffernan repeatedly. Here she is in a bustling dockside bar in Wapping; staring wistfully out at the countryside from a doorway; dressed in a fashionable silk kimono and holding a Chinese vase. Here we see her relaxing in the studio; having her hair brushed; sitting back wearily in an armchair, her long copper locks spread out around her.

In 1865 Hiffernan and Whistler joined Gustave Courbet for a working holiday on the Normandy coast. Both artists produced a series of atmospheric seascapes, and Courbet painted Hiffernan. In later life the Frenchman wrote nostalgically to Whistler about their time together.

‘Do you remember Trouville and Jo who played the clown to amuse us? In the evening she sang Irish songs so well because she had the spirit and distinction of art.’
Gustave Courbet

Wapping, 1860–64. National Gallery of Art, Washington, John Hay Whitney Collection

In 1866 Whistler’s mother (who looks so formidable in his famous portrait), disapproving of his relationship with Hiffernan, urged him ‘to promote a return to virtue in her.’ He subsequently gave his partner power of attorney to manage his affairs while he travelled, and wrote a will leaving her his whole estate.

In time Whistler moved on to another mistress. But he and Hiffernan remained on good terms, and she cared for his son by another woman. In the end she died before him, in 1886, at the age of 47. She had been suffering from bronchitis. 

The recent exhibition collected some 70 works. I was struck by the fact that it comprised nearly all of the known images of Hiffernan.

Weary 1863

It’s strange to think that, with the exception of a few letters, the records of Hiffernan were refracted through the eyes of others. We understand that she was beautiful, intelligent and had a vibrant personality. But we cannot really grasp what she felt about herself and her world.

Of course, nowadays it’s hard to imagine that all the pictures of oneself could be assembled physically in one place. There are so many of them. And through social media platforms we can create our own images and write our own narratives. We have agency. We can take back control.

But that is less the case with work. It being a team exercise, we often suppress the self in seeking collective objectives. There is an ever-present pressure to conform and fit in.

Nonetheless I feel it’s important to maintain something of one’s own identity in a professional context. We should be able to define the terms by which we engage with our employers – setting the boundaries of who we are and why we’re here - and, optimally, those terms should align with the company’s values and vision. At BBH, while applying myself to its commercial goals and creative ambitions, I insisted on pursuing my own projects, writing in my own style, presenting in my own way. I’m confident it benefitted the business. And it certainly helped me. 

We should strive to write our own stories, even when we’re at work.

'I am not in love
But I'm open to persuasion.
East or West,
Where's the best
For romancing?
With a friend
I can smile.
But with a lover
I could hold my head back,
I could really laugh,
Really laugh.
Now if I can feel the sun
In my eyes
And the rain on my face,
Why can't I
Feel love?’

Joan Armatrading,’Love and Affection'

No. 374

‘The Invention of Fogs’: Learning Not Just to Look, But to See

Claude Monet, Houses of Parliament

‘There may have been fogs for centuries in London. I dare say there were. But no one saw them, and so we know nothing about them. They did not exist until art had invented them.’
Oscar Wilde, ‘The Decay of Lying’

I recently attended the ‘Impressionists in London’ exhibition at Tate Britain (until 7 May). The show brings together works by French artists who escaped to the British capital in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 and the strife that subsequently gripped Paris.

It’s compelling to see how fresh eyes regarded London’s crowded shopping arcades and the quiet streets of its suburbs; how they perceived England’s social stratification, eccentric fashions and enthusiasm for sport. The emigres were, for example, quite taken with the spacious green parks they found here, and the fact that people were allowed to walk on the grass.

They were also drawn to the Thames: to its disordered shipping, dubious community and atmospheric effects. The exhibition climaxes with a marvellous collection of paintings by Claude Monet of the Houses of Parliament shrouded in fog.

‘What I like most of all in London is the fog. How could English painters of the nineteenth century have painted its houses brick by brick? Those fellows painted bricks they didn’t see, bricks they could not see. It’s the fog that gives London its marvellous breadth.’
Claude Monet

This fascination with London’s fog was shared by another expatriate painter, the American James Whistler. And it was Whistler that Oscar Wilde credited with ‘the invention of fogs.’

‘Where, if not from the Impressionists, do we get those wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring the gas lamps and changing the houses into monstrous shadows? To whom, if not to them and their master, do we owe the lovely silver mists that brood over our river, and turn to faint forms of fading grace curved bridge and swaying barge? The extraordinary change that has taken place in the climate of London during the last ten years is entirely due to a particular school of art. At present people see fogs, not because they are fogs, but because poets and painters have taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects.’
Oscar Wilde, ‘The Decay of Lying’

I was particularly taken with this thought: that Londoners had not really paid much attention to the fog that enveloped them; that when they looked about them, they observed the same streets that had always been there. They could not see the fog for the buildings; the wood for the trees. I like the idea that it took outsiders to see the obvious; that without their vision fog didn’t really exist; that sometimes only people with a particular gift of perception can recognize the truth.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne:Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge

Social change is all around us, hiding in plain sight. It’s in the behaviour of the outliers, the beliefs of eccentrics, the attitudes of the young. It’s in nuance and gesture; language and slang. It’s in unforeseen consequences and unrealised dreams.

Often social change lacks a name or a description. It’s there nonetheless for all to see. For the most part we look past it and through it at the structures and conventions of the past. We look, but don’t see.

So don’t wait to read about behavioural trends and cultural transformation in an industry publication, conference or blog. Don’t just adopt the tired labels and classifications of others. Don’t follow the crowd into clichéd observations about content-curating cryptocurrencies and machine-learning millennials; about authentic algorithms and scalable safe spaces.

Don’t just look at the world around you. See it.

No. 166

Whistler’s Butterfly: Creative Talent Often Comes with a Sting in Its Tail

‘[Whistler] is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting, in my opinion. And I may add that in this opinion Mr Whistler entirely concurs.’
Oscar Wilde

For much of his career the artist James McNeill Whistler inscribed his work with a stylised butterfly monogram based on his JW initials. He designed the device with elegant wings and curved antennae. And in time he gave it a barbed tail.

In many ways Whistler’s butterfly represented his own talent and personality. He was an articulate, charismatic, independent spirit, who could create extraordinary beauty. But his gifts came hand-in-hand with vanity and a sharp tongue.

‘I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateurs for three, or the cry of the critic for five.’

Born in 1834 to prosperous parents in Lowell, Massachusetts, in his youth Whistler travelled to Russia and England. He was educated (somewhat reluctantly) at West Point, studied art in Paris and settled in London in 1859.

Whistler immediately found himself at odds with the art establishment. He disliked the narrative and naturalism that were the order of the day. He detested the flattery and sentiment to which Victorian audiences were so partial. He rejected the conventional notion that art had a moral or social function. Rather he believed in ‘art for art’s sake.’

Working from a limited colour palette, with balanced composition, Whistler sought to achieve ‘tonal harmony’. He often compared his work with music. He painted subdued, thoughtful, full-length portraits. He painted dreamy ‘nocturnes’ of the Thames at rest. He painted his mother in profile, seated, in an austere black dress, her white bonnet atop neat grey hair, her lace-cuffed hands clasping a handkerchief.

Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1 or Whistler’s Mother

Whistler was small of stature, but large of personality. He dressed like a dandy, cultivated a curly moustache and sported a monocle. He enjoyed the Bohemian life, parties and entertaining. And he found a natural soul mate in Oscar Wilde.

Wilde: ‘I wish I’d said that.’
Whistler: ‘You will, Oscar, you will!’

In truth Whistler was rather arrogant and egotistical, something of a self-publicist.

‘I can’t tell you if genius is hereditary because heaven has granted me no offspring.’

He may have needed an audience, but he didn’t need friends. Whistler liked to pick fights.

‘I am not arguing with you – I am telling you.’

Whistler’s unconventional views and combustible temperament inevitably brought him into conflict with the forces of conservatism. Famously in 1877 he sued John Ruskin for libel after the critic had accused him of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’

At the trial Ruskin’s counsel queried the price Whistler had charged for ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket:’

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket

‘The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?’

‘No,’ replied Whistler, ‘I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.’

Whistler won the case, but was awarded only a farthing’s damages. The court costs bankrupted him.

Bitter experience didn’t convince Whistler to moderate his views. In 1890 he published ‘The Gentle Art of Making Enemies’, a record of, and reflections on, the Ruskin case.  He dedicated it to ‘the rare few, who, early in life, have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.’

Whistler reminds us that creativity doesn’t necessarily come hand-in-hand with congeniality; that innovators don’t always arrive with good table manners; that inspirational talent often has a sting in its tail.

Truly original thinkers must by definition be somewhat egotistical. They have to attach a particular value to their own distinctive worldview. They must feel comfortable with going against the crowd.

This creates dilemmas for Agency leadership. We want our creatives to break convention in their work, but we balk at too much unconventional behaviour in the office. We want them to express their individuality, but to do so within a team; to be emotional on paper, but rational in meetings. We want our talent to be creative, but we don’t want it to destroy too many things along the way.

I think leaders of creative businesses need to be tolerant. We have to accommodate a certain amount of vanity, misbehaviour, sharp words and rule breaking – if it is in the service of the work. But when eccentricity creates collateral damage; when it is self-serving and injurious to colleagues, then we have to step in. We have to draw the line at abuse of power.

Creative leaders must learn to harness talent to a commercial goal without diminishing its potency, and without compromising the company’s values. This is not easy. It requires judgement. And we must be ever mindful of Whistler’s own observation:

‘An artist is not paid for his labor, but for his vision.’

No. 148