Comments on: Whistler In The East End

By: W.H Amos

W.H Amos — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 12:28:26 +0000

With respect, the last image is surely looking downriver towards Rotherhithe around Hanover Stairs, is it not?

Pedantic perhaps.

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 02:13:23 +0000

Lynne Perrella, TOUCHE!

By: Lynne Perrella

Lynne Perrella — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 16:24:56 +0000

Goodness……Was there ANY thing that this gent did not excel at? (bad sentence structure, but you know what I mean) I’ve had the singular pleasure of standing inside the Peacock Room surrounded by all that teal and gold; and just that alone would have been a lifetime achievement.
And yet he did all those stunning paintings of women in kimonos, the ubiquitous Mother, and now these astounding engravings. Dare I say: these might be my top favorites of all his many accomplishments. And that is saying a mouthful.

(Hey, don’t mess with Lowell, Mass, baby. It was good enough for Kerouac. )

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 13:29:02 +0000

GA, thank you for introducing Whistler’s great drawings of the East End, revealing a part of his career with which I am not familiar. Interesting that he declined to stay in London’s West End, preferring the grittier environs near the river.

But then Whistler was always his own man. Born in 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts, a deteriorating mill city, he chose another birthplace, St. Petersburg, Russia where the family had traveled in his childhood with his railway engineer father. In later life stated definitively – “I do not choose to be born in Lowell.”

PS. You mentioned that Whistler was coming from Paris when he landed in London circa 1859. The recently departed U.S. historian David McCullough’s THE GREATER JOURNEY, Americans in Paris, contains a great account of the artist’s years in that city.

By: Mari Nicholson

Mari Nicholson — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 10:56:37 +0000

I would love to know if I can buy a book about these drawings as I would like to have them to look at frequently. They are marvellous, so thank you for bringing them to my attention. I would also love to join you for your walking tour but alas, age and infirmity means that my walking is somewhat limited so it is out of the question (I also have to travel from the S.E.)

Thank you for consistently enthralling blogs and for adding to my knowledge of my London. I miss the city every day.

By: Stephen Watts

Stephen Watts — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 10:40:20 +0000

The opening image (William Jones, Limeburner) bears an uncanny resemblance to the view into the Captain Kidd, if you are stood on the pavement outside, looking in. The same yard entrance, rooms behind (where the Bar now is) & the Thames visible, or sensed, beyond. I’m not suggesting they are the same building, but there is an uncanny resemblance. The Captain Kidd also, to my knowledge, is one of the few buildings on Wapping riverside that retains a sense of the complexity of rooms & space that must have typified many riverside buildings in Wapping in the C19th.

By: Eithne Nightingale

Eithne Nightingale — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 09:09:56 +0000

Lovely drawings – are they in any collection/gallery?
Would like to see them in person.

By: Gregory White

Gregory White — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 05:53:10 +0000

Excellent, enlightening & informative.