The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore was painted in Dieppe, probably in the autumn of 1885. ¹

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, Freer Gallery of Art

It was first exhibited in 1886, in 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 43) .

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Grey and brown – The Sad Sea Shore' (1886, Dowdeswell). ²
• Possible 'Gris et brun: La Plage' (1887, Petit). ³
• 'Grau und Brun. Ruhige See' (1888, III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Munich). ⁴
• 'Grey and Brown The Sad Sea – Dieppe' (1889, Wunderlich). ⁵
• 'Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore' (1980, YMSM). ⁶

'Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore' is the preferred title. This is an unusual, emotive and rather negative title, though it matches the subdued colouring of the chilly scene.

Description

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, Freer Gallery of Art

A beach scene in horizontal format. Several figures sit in the middle of a beige/brown beach, and others are walking by the shore in the distance at right. The sea beyond is a pale grey.

Site

Painted at Dieppe, on the French coast, a busy port and seaside resort. Whistler visited Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) and his wife there during the autumn of 1885. ⁷

Technique

Composition

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, Freer Gallery of Art

Pentimenti show that the group of three figures in the centre was once farther to the left and higher up, breaking the line of water. The group was also tried out further to the right.

Technique

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, Freer Gallery of Art

The essentially simple composition of long fluid brushstrokes reaching from one side of the panel to the other is complicated and contradicted by the fussy work around the seated figures, which must have been painted while the background was still wet. The colour is sombre, the brown sand and grey sea matching the title exactly, and painted over a pale grey ground. It is unique in Whistler's work in having no horizon visible.

Conservation History

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, photograph, 1913/1914

An early photograph, dating from when it was at Knoedler's in New York, shows no change in the picture's condition, except that there is now a small scratch or abrasion at lower right.

According to Freer Gallery records, it was cleaned and varnished in 1937, resurfaced in 1938, and again cleaned and resurfaced in 1951.

Frame

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, Freer Gallery of Art

1886: The frame was probably made for the 1886 Dowdeswell exhibition. ⁸

History

Provenance

• 1889: possibly bought from Wunderlich, New York art dealer, by C. A. Miller (dates unknown).
• ca 1900: possibly owned by James Staats Forbes (1823-1904).
• 1914: bought from Knoedler's, New York art dealers, by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

It was exhibited with “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 27) as 'Grey and Brown The Sad Sea - Dieppe' priced at £35. ⁹ According to a list of buyers, it was bought from the exhibition by a C. A. Miller, but the sale is annotated 'disappeared'. ¹⁰ There are several gaps in the provenance and this sale is not certain.

It was at one time, according to C. L. Freer, in the 'Forbes' collection: possibly he meant James Staats Forbes (1823-1904).

Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore, photograph, 1913/1914

It was later acquired by Knoedler's, who sold it to C. L. Freer in January 1914 for $2005.

Exhibitions

• 1886: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 43) as 'Grey and brown – The Sad Sea Shore'.
• 1887: possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 184) as 'Gris et brun: La Plage'.
• 1888: III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888 (cat. no. 63) as 'Grau und Brun. Ruhige See'.
• 1889: “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 27) as 'Grey and Brown The Sad Sea – Dieppe'.

At Dowdeswell's in 1886 it was priced at £35. ¹¹ It was grouped with a number of other small works approved of by the Illustrated London News, on 15 May 1886. However, it was the target selected by one journalist: 'he takes a small canvas, across the middle of which he draws a line, the top he fills in with grey supposed to be sky and sea – the lower half with a dirty drab ... Two or three smudges represent people sitting on the beach.' ¹²

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 330), plate 221, as 'Grey and Brown: The Sad Sea Shore'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 43) as 'Grey and brown – The Sad Sea Shore'.
• Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 184) as 'Gris et brun: La Plage'.
• III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888 (cat. no. 63) as 'Grau und Brun. Ruhige See'.
• “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 27) as 'Grey and Brown. The Sad Sea – Dieppe'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Whistler Exhibition', Illustrated London News, London, 15 May 1886, p. 14.
• Morning Post, London, ca 10 May 1887, in GUL Whistler PC 3, p. 120.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Holden, Donald, Whistler Landscapes and Seascapes, New York, 1969, repr. pl. 32.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, pl. 96.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 16 (14.2).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 142, 295, pl. 47.

Journals 1906-Present

• Dempsey, Andrew, 'Whistler and Sickert: A Friendship and its End', Apollo, vol. 83, January 1966, pp. 30-37, at p. 32.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1914.2a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 410).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.