American Painter and Printmaker, 1834-1903 James Abbott McNeill Whistler's deft brushwork and mighty ego made him one of London's best-known painters in the second half of the 1800s. Born in Massachusetts, Whistler spent most of his adult life in England and France, in an era when an American artist in Europe was something of a rarity. He specialized in landscapes and (especially later in his career) portraits; stylistically he is often linked with Claude Monet and August Renoir, though he was not exactly part of the Impressionist movement. His etchings also are highly regarded. Witty, cranky and a bit of a devil, Whistler was a regular gadabout in British society. He had a famous long-running feud with the playwright Oscar Wilde, each of them trying to outwit the other with cutting public remarks. Some critics of the era considered Whistler's work to be smudgy and too radical; after viewing Whistler's 1875 study of fireworks over the Thames, Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket, John Ruskin wrote: "I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler successfully sued Ruskin for libel but was awarded only a farthing in damages,  Related Paintings of James Mcneill Whistler :. | Peacock Room fron the Frederic Leyland House | Grand Canal Amsterdam | arrangement in grey and black the artist s mother | Wapping | The girl in white |
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Octavius Oakley
1800-1867 was a Victorian watercolourist. Oakley initially worked for a cloth manufacturer near Leeds in Yorkshire. He developed into a specialist of portraits in watercolour and enjoyed the patronage of the Duke of Devonshire. From living in Derby where he depicted rustic scenes, he moved to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire in 1836, but returned to London in the 1840s and worked there until his death, producing paintings of street scenes and gypsies and their lifestyle. His emphasis on gypsy paintings which he exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society earned him the name 'Gypsy Oakley'. Oakley met Thomas Baker in Leamington Spa where Baker was living and working and in 1841
master of st bartholomew
active in Cologne ca 1480/1510
Kosztka, Tivadar Csontvry
Hungarian Painter, 1853-1919