The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert dates from between 1885 and 1887. ¹

Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane

The date of the portrait is not clear from the correspondence between artist and sitter. Sickert wrote to Whistler, possibly in December 1885 or 1886, that he had paid for his portrait, but, later, possibly in October 1887, he mentioned that £52.10.0 was outstanding 'to complete the 200 guineas.' ² Unfortunately, it is not known if one or other or both of these payments were for a full-length, Portrait of Walter Sickert y349 (which is unlikely), or for a head-and-shoulder portrait of Sickert, either this portrait and Portrait Sketch of Walter Sickert y351.

Images

Subject

Titles

Minor variations on the title have been suggested:

• 'Sketch Portrait of Mr Sickert' (1905, National Museum, Dublin). ³
• 'Portrait Sketch of Walter Sickert' (1960, Arts Council). ⁴
• 'Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

'Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert' is the preferred title.

Description

Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane

A head and shoulders portrait of a young man in vertical format. He faces the viewer, his dark hair tousled, falling forward over his forehead.

Sitter

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) met Whistler about 1882, and left the Slade School of Art to become Whistler's pupil and assistant.

Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, photograph 1980

Portrait Sketch of Walter Sickert, Private Collection

He commissioned Whistler to paint portraits of both his wife (see Arrangement in Violet and Pink: Mrs Walter Sickert y337 and Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert y338) and himself (see Portrait of Walter Sickert y349 and Portrait Sketch of Walter Sickert y351).

Technique

Technique

Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane

Thinly painted, with broad brushstrokes, the paint barely scrubbed in, and the canvas showing through at times: the free brushstrokes are rather similar to Sickert's work, but the paint is applied less thickly.

MacDonald commented:

'Whistler painted two head-and-shoulder studies of Sickert. With their broad, square brush-strokes, and warm brown tones, they appear more like self-portraits, suggesting the influence of the younger man on the master's work.' ⁶

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• 1885/1886: probably commissioned by the sitter, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942);
• 1904: presented by Sickert to the Gallery of Modern Art, which was being established by Sir Hugh Percy Lane (1875-1915) in Dublin;
• 1908: The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art established in 1908 was later renamed "Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane".

Sickert wrote to Whistler, possibly in December 1885 or 1886, that he had paid for his portrait, but, later, possibly in October 1887, he mentioned that £52.10.0 was outstanding ('This leaves me indebted to you for £52..10 for my portrait, to complete the 200 guineas.'). ⁷ It is not known if these payments were for the full-length portrait, Portrait of Walter Sickert y349, or for one of the two smaller portraits of Sickert painted about the same time (see Portrait Sketch of Walter Sickert y351).

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

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. 350), plate 231, as 'Sketch Portrait of Walter Sickert'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Pictures given to the City of Dublin to form the Nucleus of a Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum, Dublin, 1905 (cat. no. 20) as 'Sketch Portrait of Mr. Sickert'.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Duret, Théodore, trans. by Frank Rutter, Whistler, English edition, London, 1917, repr. f.p. 122.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, p. 35, repr.

Books, General

• Baron, Wendy, Sickert, London, 1973.
• Baron, Wendy, Sickert: Paintings and Drawings,Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006, p. 344.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 54) as 'Portrait Sketch of Walter Sickert'.
• 'MacDonald, Margaret, 'Whistler como artista, maestro y amigo', pp. 19-32, in Dempsey, Andrew (ed.), James McNeill Whistler. Walter Richard Sickert, La Caixa, Madrid, 1998, pp. 27, 115, 219, repr. fig. 14.
• McConkey, ‎Kenneth and Anna Gruetzner Robins, ‎Impressionism in Britain, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1995, p. 208 (cat. no. 244).

Journals 1906-Present

• Dempsey, Andrew, 'Whistler and Sickert: A Friendship and its End', Apollo, vol. 83, January 1966, pp. 30-37, at pp. 32-33.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 188).

Other

• None.