Cowan, an Edinburgh paper manufacturer, sat to Whistler for this portait at least sixty times between 1893 and 1900. Even so, Whistler completed only the head, rubbing down the work on Cowan's grey knickerbocker suit as he was dissatisfied with the result. He did not allow Cowan to have the portrait as it was unfinished.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834 - 1903)
Whistler was born in Massachusetts. He trained in Paris and then moved to London, where he became associated with the English Aesthetic movement, befriending the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He collected Japanese art objects and from the early 1860s began incorporating Japanese elements into his work and experimenting with technique, rejecting realism and painting from memory. He developed his own aesthetic theory, giving his works musical titles, seeking tonal harmony in his paintings and emphasising the formal qualities of his work, rather than narrative content. His Nocturnes, were important precursors of Symbolist painting. Whistler courted notoriety. He voiced his theories in publications such as ‘The Red Rag’ and his famous ‘Ten O’Clock’ lecture, first delivered in London in 1885.
