Arrangement in Flesh Color and Brown: Portrait of Arthur Jerome Eddy

A passionate collector and champion of modern art, the Chicago lawyer Arthur Jerome Eddy commissioned James McNeill Whistler to paint his portrait after viewing the artist’s work at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The two became lasting friends, and Eddy published a book on Whistler after the artist’s death in 1903. Unlike contemporaneous artists such as John Singer Sargent, who relied upon flamboyant brushwork to convey his painterly virtuosity, Whistler favored thinly painted compositions, which he called “arrangements” to emphasize color rather than subject matter. This portrait is one of Whistler’s finest, displaying the delicate color harmonies that characterize his art-for-art’s-sake mentality.

Credit: Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection