MINNEAPOLIS.- On the centenary year of James McNeill Whistler’s death, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts celebrates Whistler’s career and life through the free exhibition “Symphony in Black and White: 100 Etchings and Lithographs by James McNeill Whistler.” Opening December 6, the exhibition focuses on Whistler’s extraordinary achievement as a printmaker.

The core of this intimate exhibition is an impressive selection from the Institute’s permanent collection, which documents every stage of Whistler’s career. Never content on any one style, Whistler’s works in the exhibition range from moody and atmospheric tones to etchings in which the line is everything. Viewers will not only see some of the Institute’s more popular Whistler prints, such as The Lime-Burner, but they will also be able to explore the entire collection in its great range and variety for the first time. The majority of these works were part of the Herschel V. Jones gift to the museum in 1916. The exhibition will include several oil paintings and drawings lent by generous local collectors John and Colles Larkin.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) is considered one of the most influential printmakers in art history. He was central to the etching revival of the mid-nineteenth century and made great strides in promoting prints as art objects in their own right, and not simply reproductions. Whistler was also the first artist to sign and number his prints, thereby giving them a greater sense of value and rarity that lead to an increased interest in print collecting.

Born in Massachusetts, Whistler spent most of his life abroad. In 1855, at the age of twenty-one, Whistler embarked in 1855 for Paris. His first success came in 1858 with an etching series known as the “French Set,” which included scenes from a sketching trip through Alsace and the Rhineland. The next year he settled temporarily in London and followed up with a second series called the “Thames Set.” In a radical shift from the “French Set” of the year before, Whistler deliberately immersed himself in the dangerous and crime-infested areas where the River Thames flowed through London and created a bold group of images acclaimed for their treatment of pictorial space and gritty realism.

Whistler temporarily abandoned his printmaking from 1863 to 1870 to concentrate on his drawing and painting. The following decade proved turbulent for Whistler. A nasty lawsuit against influential art critic John Ruskin, and a dispute with one of his patrons, Frederick Leyland, left the artist bankrupt. Hoping to recoup his losses, Whistler went to Venice in 1879 when the Fine Art Society of London commissioned a set of twelve etchings. He stayed in Venice for more than a year, producing fifty etchings and completing ninety pastels and twelve paintings. Whistler’s high regard of the printmaking art is fully realized in his Venetian etchings. He was proud of this work and believed that his printing methods produced an etching that “vibrated and was full of color,” despite the fact that the work was printed in black-and-white.

“Symphony in Black and White: 100 Etchings and Lithographs by James McNeill Whistler” runs December 6, 2003 through March 28, 2004. Admission is free.