Symposium
Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism
Meyer Auditorium
Freer Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C.
Thursday and Friday, October 27–28, 2011
Presentations by international scholars considered how issues of patronage, collecting, display, and critical interpretation shaped the Aesthetic art movement, its theories and practices, and its reception in a global context. Through the introduction of new approaches to Aestheticism, scholars challenged conceptions about the place of James McNeill Whistler and his international circle of contemporaries within the Aesthetic movement.
This symposium honored the achievements of Professor Margaret MacDonald of the University of Glasgow. It was organized by the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies, a scholarly collaboration of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Colby College Museum of Art, and the University of Glasgow. It was the first in a series of conferences supporting the consortium’s mission of promoting innovative scholarship on the art of James McNeill Whistler and his international circle of contemporaries.
“Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism” was made possible by the generosity of the Lunder Foundation.
The event was free and open to the public.
