James Abbott McNeill Whistler

James McNeill Whistler believed painting should be like music: arrangements of colour and tone rather than stories. His titles say it: Arrangement, Symphony, Nocturne. His paintings are subtle and restrained, often built from greys, blacks and soft blues.

He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, studied briefly at West Point, then trained in Paris. He settled in London, where his Nocturnes of the Thames at night caused a scandal; the critic John Ruskin attacked them and Whistler sued. His portrait of his mother, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, was bought by the French state and is now in the Musée d’Orsay. Symphony in White, No. 1 is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Nocturne in Black and Gold, with fireworks over dark water, shows his most daring side.