Alfred Chapman
Date of birth: 1839.01.11
Place of birth: Preston, Lancashire
Date of death: 1917.07.11
Place of death: 8A Oxford Road, Southport, Lancashire
Category: collector
Identity:
Alfred Chapman's family lived in Liverpool. His brothers and sisters included Ellen, George and Dr Chapman, all of whom Whistler knew.
Life:
An engineer and industrialist, Chapman worked at the Phoenix foundry in Liverpool. He was one of Whistler's major patrons in the 1870s, and a generous supporter, willing to lend his works to exhibitions. Whistler may have met him through F. R. Leyland. Between 1874 and 1878 Chapman bought Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor y100 (painted 1875/1876); Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Southampton Water y117, bought by 22 June 1874 (#11251); Blue and Gold: Channel y159, possibly bought in 1874 (see letters of 5 and 17 July 1876); Nocturne: Battersea Reach y160, bought on 22 June 1874 (GUW #11251); Cremorne y168, bought [6] November 1877 through C. A. Howell; and lastly, Nocturne: Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow y174 painted by 1876 and bought by 1878, again possibly through Howell. Not all these pictures have been identified with extant pictures.
Bibliography:
Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 , (cat. nos. 89, 100, 117, 120, 159-60, 168, 174).
