Fleeting Impressions

Alabama: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 2006. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Octavo in pictorial wraps; 120 pages: illustrations; 28 cm Near Fine, mild bumping to tail of spine, slight wrinkle to upper corner; overall a very clean copy. Paperback. ISBN: 9780892800490, 0892800496

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly with an added long stinger for a tail. The symbol combined both aspects of his personality: his art is marked by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative.