James McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1, better known as Portrait of the Painter’s Mother, will form a highlight of Tate Britain’s retrospective that opens on 21 May, The Art Newspaper reported. Vincent van Gogh wrote to his sister Wilhelmina in December 1889 that the 1871 painting of old age reminded him of their own mother, according to a letter quoted by both The Art Newspaper and the Van Gogh Museum. The work, which belongs to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, is being lent to the London show and its subsequent venues.
Whistler painted the portrait of his 67-year-old mother Anna after a model failed to arrive at his Chelsea studio in London, Tate Britain stated in its press release. He gave the work the title Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1 as part of his practice of naming pictures after musical compositions, the museum’s exhibition page explained. The painting has since become the American-born artist’s best known image despite his broader output across portraits, nocturnes and prints.
Van Gogh may have seen the portrait or a reproduction when it was exhibited at London’s Flemish Gallery in June 1874, The Art Newspaper noted. The Dutch artist was working nearby as a trainee art dealer at the time and remained in the city until 25 June before returning to the Netherlands. Van Gogh counted Whistler among the artists he and his brother Theo had loved in their time, the Van Gogh Museum reported on its exhibition page.
Tate Britain’s exhibition brings together 150 works spanning Whistler’s paintings, drawings, prints and designs from his teenage years in St Petersburg to his late self-portraits, according to the institution’s January 2026 press release. It assembles the largest group of the artist’s nocturnes shown together for more than 30 years, beginning with one painted in Chile and ending with a Venetian scene, the release added. The show is curated by Carol Jacobi of Tate Britain along with colleagues and collaborators from the Van Gogh Museum.
The retrospective will travel to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from 16 October 2026 to 10 January 2027 under the title Whistler: Dandy and Disruptor, the museum announced. A related exhibition at the Mesdag Collection in The Hague during the same period will focus on Whistler’s connections to the Netherlands, where he felt a close affinity and visited the collection on his final day in the country, the Van Gogh Museum stated. Both Dutch presentations will include the portrait of Whistler’s mother.
Whistler and Van Gogh shared a fascination with Japanese aesthetics and each pushed the boundaries of what art could be, the Van Gogh Museum assessment found. The American artist helped shape modern art through his belief that works should evoke a mood rather like music, according to the museum’s description of the Amsterdam show. Tate Britain’s exhibition, the first major European survey of Whistler in 30 years, follows the institution’s previous display in 1994.
