Arrangement in Blue: The Artist's Mother
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(1834 - 1903)
It is not widely known that Whistler first painted his mother wearing a blue gown in a blue room. When she was allowed to see the finished painting she was not happy. "I hate it!" she screamed. "I hate blue! Please destroy it!" Well, Whistler did not destroy it; he made a second version, Arrangement in Gray and Black, that is now in Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Whereabouts of the blue version is unknown.
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