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Walter Greaves:
Whistler on the Thames, 1874
Framed (ref: 8040)
Signed and dated 

Tags: Walter Greaves oil Portrait men 1.PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST

Provenance: Private Collection

Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.162.

Walter Greaves met  James Abbott McNeill Whistle in 1863.. Greaves was captivated by Whistler and developed a friendship with him, becoming, along with his brother Henry, (also an artists) his assistant and pupil. Walter Greaves recalled, "We used to get ready his colours and canvasses, prepare the grey distemper ground which he so liked working upon, and painted the mackerel-back pattern on the frames."  During the 1870's Greaves made a series of portraits of Whistler,  with the Thames as a backdrop.  Their friendship was jeopardized  in the early 1880s when Joseph Pennell, Whistler's friend and biographer, damaged Greaves reputation by suggesting that  some of his canvases had in fact been painted by Whistler - a controversy that  Greaves  reputation never recovered from.