Documents associated with: 64th Annual Exhibition, Royal Society of British Artists, London, 1887
Record 12 of 31
System Number: 10842
Date: 31 March 1887
Author: JW
Place: [London]
Recipient: William Ayerst Ingram[1]
Place: London
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 11/1054/2
Document Type: TWc[2]
March 31st 1887.
Handed in at the Kings Road B. Office at 9.32 a.m.
Received here at 9.48 a.m
TO: Ingram, - 86 Fellows Road - Hampstead.
So discreet of you all at Hogarth[3]s thanks. -
WHISTLER.
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. William Ayerst Ingram
William Ayerst Ingram (1855-1913), marine and landscape painter [more]. He probably made this transcription.
2. TWc
Published in Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 65.
3. Hogarth
The Hogarth Club, a private gentleman's club for artists and amateurs. According to Pennell, JW was painting the doors and mantlepieces of the Suffolk Street galleries yellow the night before the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales. At the Hogarth Club that night, his colleagues complained bitterly. JW refused to have anything further to do with the decorations, though these were still unfinished. He was telegraphed for. "So discreet of you all at the Hogarth," was the answer, and he did not appear until it was time to meet the Prince, though dissatisfied members worked to tone down the yellows, to the very moment of the Prince's arrival' (Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, pp. 64-5). This is clearly inaccurate since JW's telegram was sent on the 31st March and the Prince was due on the 4 April. Also it is unlikely that JW or his colleagues would have shown the Prince round galleries smelling of new paint, so the exchange of telegrams may have had some other reasons - possibly the mere fact that the SBA spent the evening discussing what was intended to be a private Royal visit had annoyed JW whose telegram dates from the following morning (see letter from D. M. Probyn to JW, 31 March 1887, #05054).