The Week - UK (2022-04-09)

ARTS 31

9 April 2022 THE WEEK

Art

You might have never heard Joanna

Hiffernan’s name, but you probably

know her face, said Alastair Smart in

The Daily Telegraph. Born in Ireland

in the 1840s, Hiffernan was the lover

of the American artist James McNeill

Whistler, and the model for his 1862

painting Symphony in White, No. 1:

The White Girl – one of the most

controversial works of its era. Depicting

Hiffernan in “a white house dress

standing before a white muslin curtain”,

it broke all the rules of contemporary

portraiture: its scale was “almost life-

size”, a format generally reserved for

pictures of “important men”; the use

of white on white was “radical”. The

appearance of its model, meanwhile –

notably her “free-flowing” red hair –

lent itself to accusations of lewdness. It

was a “succès de scandale” that played

no small part in establishing Whistler’s

reputation. This new exhibition explores

the relationship between the artist and

his muse, pairing the work (here labelled

Woman in White) with a number of

paintings and prints by Whistler and

his contemporaries, including no less

than 30 depictions of Hiffernan. It’s a

gripping show that “tells a fascinating

story with the aid of first-rate pictures”.

By all accounts, Hiffernan was “quite

a woman”: five years Whistler’s junior,

she was his “mistress, friend, companion

and sometime business manager”, said

Melanie McDonagh in the London

Evening Standard. Gustave Courbet, for

whom she also modelled, remembered

her singing Irish songs “with the soul

of an artist”. Courbet’s sensuous “head-

portrait” of her is one of the highlights

here; another is Whistler’s portrayal of

“Wapping low life”, in which Hiffernan

looks “very much at home”. But a few

striking portraits “do not make an

exhibition”. The rest of the show mainly

consists of paintings only tangentially

related to the subject: Klimt’s portrait of

Hermine Gallia makes the grade because

it depicts a woman in white, while

Whistler’s interest in Japan justifies

the inclusion of a number of unrelated

Hiroshige woodblock prints. “This show,

frankly, is a mess. It doesn’t really do

anybody justice.”

I disagree, said Laura Cumming in

The Observer. The exhibition is packed

with arresting images. There are three

“magnificent” Courbet seascapes from

a holiday he took with the couple; a

series of “fascinating” Whistler prints

that capture Hiffernan’s “amazing

copper tresses”; and a “marvellously

dynamic” poster for a play of Wilkie

Collins’s novel The Woman in White,

with which Whistler’s portrait became

associated. Nothing, however, rivals

the painting itself. Seven foot tall, with

“an astonishing range of colours in its

palette of whites”, it is an unqualified

masterpiece. Small as it is, this is

a “beautifully focused” exhibition.

Exhibition of the week Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan

The Royal Academy of Arts, London W1 (020-7300 8090, royalacademy.org.uk). Until 22 May

Nobody could ever accuse Anne

Buchanan Crosby (b.1929) of

careerism. From the 1940s, she trained

and exhibited alongside a number

of artists who went on to

become household names,

but had no such ambition

for herself: indeed, she

twice refused the offer of

a show at the Serpentine.

It was the art world’s loss:

as Transformation, this

show of previously unseen

paintings dating from 1970

to 2000 attests, Buchanan

Crosby’s paintings are

gloriously idiosyncratic.

These diminutive

mythological scenes are

painted in a naïf style, but

they have a hard edge to them. Painted

in oil on panel, they have a scratchy

texture that conveys more than a hint

of the violence in the original tales

(Europa and the bull; Echnida [sic]

and Hercules) and puts the spectator in

the position of the voyeur. Her palette,

conversely, is gorgeous: even with the

drabbest of colours, Buchanan Crosby

finds an uncommon depth and richness.

Prices range from £900 to £1,750.

159 Farringdon Road, London EC1,

020-7833 2674. Until 9 April

Where to buy...

The Week reviews an

exhibition in a private gallery

Anne Buchanan

Crosby

at Eagle Gallery

“Few buildings

in Britain have

had as strong

an impact on

the nation’s

artistic life as

Kelmscott

Manor,” says

Dalya Alberge

in The

Guardian. The

17th century

manor house in Oxfordshire was leased by

William Morris in 1871. It became his beloved

rural retreat and its architecture, history, and

surrounding flora and fauna greatly inspired

the artist, poet and thinker – a pioneer of the

Arts and Crafts movement whose fabrics and

furniture, wallpaper and stained glass had a

profound influence on British design. Now

Kelmscott Manor has reopened to the public,

following a £6m renovation project. The project

involved major structural repairs and extensive

restoration of the interiors, using individually

printed wallpaper designs from Morris & Co

archives, as well as repainting in the colours

chosen by Morris himself. Among the paintings

now reinstated at Kelmscott is The Blue Silk

Dress (1868), Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s portrait of

Morris’s wife Jane.

William Morris’s manor house

© NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, HARRIS WHITTEMORE COLLECTION

Symphony in White, No. 1: a “succès de scandale”

The visitation of a god (1974): 13.5cm x 19.5cm