Henry James and American Painting

June 9 through September 10, 2017

In 1884, Henry James (1843–1916) wrote in The Art of Fiction:

The analogy between the art of the painter and the art of the novelist is, so far as I am able to see, complete. Their inspiration is the same, their process (allowing for the different quality of the vehicle), is the same, their success is the same. They may learn from each other, they may explain and sustain each other. Their cause is the same, and the honour of one is the honour of another.

Henry James and American Painting is the first exhibition to explore the author’s deep and lasting interest in the visual arts and their profound impact on the literature he produced. Offering a fresh perspective on the master novelist, the show reveals the importance of James’s friendships with American artists such as John La Farge (1835–1910), John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), and James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). While the author decided early on that the pictorial arts were not to be the arena in which he would work, the painterly quality of his writing has enthralled readers for over a century.

Co-curated by acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín and Declan Kiely, head of the Morgan’s Department of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, the exhibition includes a rich and eclectic selection of more than fifty paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, photographs, manuscripts, letters, and printed books from two dozen museums and private collections in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland. Together they weave an evocative story of fascinating artistic intersections.

Online exhibition
Listen to the exhibition audio guide narrated by co-curator and acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín with an introduction by Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum.

Henry James and American Painting is made possible with a lead gift from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation.

Major funding is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Generous support is provided by Karen H. Bechtel, the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, and the Franklin Jasper Walls Lecture Fund, and assistance from Barbara G. Fleischman and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

JL Greene

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Henry James, 1913, Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London; Bequeathed by Henry James, 1916. NPG 1767.

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Selected images

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Henry James, 1913, oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London; Bequeathed by Henry James, 1916. NPG 1767.

John La Farge (1835–1910), Henry James, 1862, oil on canvas. The Century Association, New York City.

Alice Boughton (1865–1943), Henry James, 1906, gelatin silver print. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. Gift of Allan M. Price.

Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), Elizabeth Boott Duveneck, 1888, oil on canvas. Cincinnati Art Museum; Gift of the artist, 1915.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), An Interior In Venice (The Curtis Family), 1898, oil on canvas. Lent by the Royal Academy of Arts, London; Diploma Work given by John Singer Sargent, R. A., accepted 1900.

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Arrangement in Black and Brown: The Fur Jacket, 1877, oil on canvas. Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts. Museum Purchase, 1910. Image Courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum.

Lilla Cabot Perry (1848–1933), The Green Hat, 1913, oil on canvas. Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1987.25. Photography ©Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Venetian Women in the Palazzo Rezzonico, ca. 1880, oil on canvas. Private collection, courtesy of David Nisinson.

Henry James (1843–1916), Project of a Novel (outline for The Ambassadors), September 1, 1900. The Morgan Library & Museum; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. A. Hyatt Mayor, 1974, MA 3140.1. Photography by Graham S. Haber.

Henry James (1843–1916), What Maisie Knew, [1897], typescript of two chapters, with autograph corrections. © The Morgan Library & Museum; Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 1991, MA 4691. Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2016.

Henry James (1843–1916), Italian Hours (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909). The Morgan Library & Museum; The Carter Burden Collection of American Literature, PML 185770. Photography by Graham S. Haber.

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Nocturne, Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach, 1872–1878, oil on canvas. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

William James (1882–1961), Portrait of Henry James, 1910, oil on canvas. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Elizabeth Boott Duveneck, Francis Boott, Frank Duveneck, and Mary Ann Shenston, at Bellosguardo, Florence, ca. 1886, sepia photograph on board. Frank and Elizabeth Boott Duveneck Papers, 1851–1972. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, 1885, oil on canvas. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2005.3. Photograhy by Dwight Primiano.

Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), Villa Castellani at Bellosguardo, 1887, oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum; Healy Purchase Fund.

Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), Francis Boott, 1881, oil on canvas. Cincinnati Art Museum; The Edwin and Virginia Irwin Memorial. Image courtesy Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, USA/ Gift of the Artist/Bridgeman Images