Documents associated with: Bayliss, Wyke
Record 14 of 58
System Number: 10938
Date: [7 June 1888]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: Marion Henry Spielmann[1]
Place: London
Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Call Number: bMS Eng 1352 (3)
Credit Line: Published by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Document Type: W
[telegraph form:] POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHS.
[postmark:] [W]ESTBOURNE CRO[SS?] W / 2 / JU 7 / 88
HANDED IN AT THE} Queens Rd Chelsea OFFICE AT 6. 10 p.M., RECEIVED HERE AT} 6- 57 .M.
TO Spielmann
16 Porchester Tce W
Have thought over this morning better taste omit completely all reference to Valerium[2] [sic] Battle
Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. Marion Henry Spielmann
Marion Henry Alexander Spielmann (1858-1948), journalist and writer on art [more].
2. Valerium
JW designed the velarium, a muslin canopy for the galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists (of which he had been President since 1886). The Pennells described it as 'a translucent screen, the edges of which are allowed to hang down, placed some two of three feet below the skylight of the gallery. The light therefore falls upon the pictures alone and everything under the velarium is in shadows.' See Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 305. During the last months of his Presidency, JW argued with the Society over the ownership of the velarium. This telegram probably relates to Spielmann's recent interview with JW, which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette on 11 June 1888. In the interview, given in the aftermath of his resignation as President, JW gave his account of events and attacked Wyke Bayliss (1835-1906), painter and architect [more]. See also JW to M. H. Spielmann, #10945, #10944. See Anon., 'The Rise and Fall of the Whistler Dynasty. An Interview with exPresident Whistler,' The Pall Mall Gazette: An Evening Newspaper and Review, vol. 47, no. 7249, 11 June 1888, pp. 1-2; an edited version in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 2nd ed., London and New York, 1892, pp. 205-210; and Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995, pp. 49-55.