Book Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XXVII. THE STUDIO IN THE FULHAM ROAD. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-FIVE TO EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-SEVEN IN 1885, while we were still in Italy, Whistler moved from Tite Street and took a studio at No. 454 Fulham Road, not far from the Town Hall, on the opposite side of the street. A shabby gate leads into a shabby lane backed by a group of studios, of which his was one. Here Lady Archibald Campbell, M. Duret, and other sitters followed, and new portraits were begun. He was living at the time with Maud in a little house close by which he called the Pink Palace, the outside of which he painted himself. Two shops have taken its place. But soon he moved to the Vale, Chelsea? an amazing place, he said; you might be in the heart of the country, and there, two steps away, is the King's Road; the house is the first on the right after you go through the iron gates. Of none of the studios or rooms in which he had worked up to this time do such accurate records remain. It was part of Whistler's policy during these years to keep well before the public, and one way of accomplishing it was by granting interviews to enterprising young journalists, and helping his friends in their descriptions of himself and his work written for publication. As he never thought any paper too insignificant for his notice when to answer its criticism gave him the opportunity to make the statements he wanted to make, so he did not mind where these interviews appeared so long as they did appear and contained the facts he wished known. One of the most interesting as a contemporary record of the 'eighties came out in the Court and Society Review (July 1, 1886). It was written by Mr. Malcolm C. Salaman, and its interest is in the details it gives of the studio and the work then to be seen there, and ...