Green and Blue: The Dancer

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Prints and Drawings

c. 1893

James McNeill Whistler
American, 1834-1903

Inspired by Greek sculpture and Japanese prints, James McNeill Whistler became entranced with portraying the female form clad in diaphanous drapery in the 1890s. He developed this theme in all the media in which he worked, including transfer lithography, oil, pastel, and watercolor. The artist usually provided garments for his models to wear, often classical gossamer gowns with high waists and crossed bodices paired with brightly colored kerchiefs. His models needed a certain degree of strength and agility, as he sometimes asked them to dance about his studio until he found a suitable pose. In Green and Blue: The Dancer, Whistler employed thin watercolor washes to distill the graceful movements of his lissome young model. The brown paper on which he painted lends opacity to the washes, thereby adding subtle weight to the thin veils of fabric draping the figure.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Title: Green and Blue: The Dancer
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1888–1898
Medium: Watercolor and opaque watercolor over traces of black chalk on brown wove paper laid down on card
Inscriptions: Inscribed, verso, lower right, in black ink: "8"
Dimensions: 27.5 × 18.3 cm (10 7/8 × 7 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Dr. William D. Shorey; through prior acquisitions of the Charles Deering Collection and through prior bequest of Mrs. Gordon Palmer
Reference Number: 1988.219
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/111164/manifest.json

Elisabeth L. Cary, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works (New York, 1907), opp. p. 42 (ill.), 171, no. 93.
“Fifth Annual Exhibition…and an arrangement of seven works by James A. McNeill Whistler,” Academy Notes Buffalo Fine Arts Academy V (January 1910), pp. 2-4 (ill.).
“The Seventh Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists,” Academy Notes Buffalo Fine Arts Academy VII (July 1912), p. 45 (ill.).
Pierre Cabanne, Whistler (New York, 1985), p. 80 (ill.).
Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 1995), pp. 495-496, no. 1376 (ill.).
Patrick Chaleyssin, James McNeill Whistler: The Strident Cry of the Butterfly (Bournemouth, U.K., 1995), p. 137 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Essential Guide (Chicago, 2009), pp. 287 (detail ill.) and 303 (ill.).
The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Judith A. Barter (Chicago, 2011), pp. 44-45 (ill., pl. 15).
Lee Glazer, Emily Jacobson, Blythe McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor: Lovely Little Games, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C., 2019), p. 129.

Boston, Copley Society, “Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels, and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of he Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler,” February 1904, cat. 96.
Buffalo, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, “The Works of J. A. McNeill Whistler from the Collection of Mr. Richard Canfield of Providence, Rhode Island,” September 10-October 10, 1909, cat. 3 (ill.).
Berlin, Könikliche Akademie der Kunste, “Austellung Amerikanischer Kunst,” March-April 1910, cat. 94; traveled to Munich, Royal Art Society, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Buffalo, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, “Oils, Water Colors, Pastels, and Drawings by James McNeill Whistler lent by Mr. Richard Canfield,” March 7-April 27, 1911, cat. 13 (ill.).
New York, Knoedler and Company, “Oils, Water Colors, Pastels, and Drawings by J. McN. Whistler,” 1914, cat. 15.
Boston, Museum of Fine Art, “Oils, Water-Colors, Drawings, and Prints by James McNeill Whistler,” April 24-May 13, 1934, cat. 41.
New York, Carroll Carstairs Gallery, “Whistler: pastels and water colours,” January 12-February 5, 1938, cat.12.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “From the Ridiculous to the Sublime: British Drawings from the Permanent Collection”, December 20, 1988-April 24, 1989.
New York, The Frick Collection, “From Pontormo to Seurat: Drawings Recently Acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago,” April 23-July 7, 1991, n.p., cat. 60; The Art Institute of Chicago, September 10, 1991-January 5, 1992.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography,” June 6-August 30, 1998, pp. 56, 59, 60 and 75, cat. 108, fig. 67; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, October 2, 1998-January 3, 1999.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Broad Spectrum: Color on Paper, Past and Present,” September 12–October 31, 1999, hors. cat.

R. A. Canfield, Providence, R.I., acquired directly from the artist, May 1903 [MacDonald 1995]; sold to Knoedler and Company, New York, March 1914 [MacDonald 1995]; sold to Harris Whittemore (1864-1927), April 1914 [MacDonald 1995]; sold, Christie’s, New York, December 6, 1985, lot 178, to Peter Terian, New York [MacDonald 1995]. Sold by David Nisinson, New York to the Art Institute, 1988.

Cats. 31–32 Green and Blue: The Dancer, c. 1893, and The Little Blue Cap, 1893/95

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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