Documents associated with: Exhibition of International Art, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 1898
Record 1 of 87
System Number: 08065
Date: [1896/1897?][1]
Author: JW
Place: [London]
Recipient: Albert Ludovici[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 2/18/1
Document Type: ALS
My dear Ludovici -
You will be pleased to hear - at least I hope so - that I have put you on the Committee of this new Grosvenor[3] business - -
I need not enjoin on[e] of your wit to be discreet - but of course this is [the] moment when it is well that innocence [p. 2] and gentle simplicity should prevail -
We will take control together!
I have also put Holloway[4] upon the bench with us - So thats all right!
It seemed to me after all that this was the right moment, instead of waiting - I fancy you will be pleased to feel that we[5] are again - in a way gathered together - And you must tell Holloway for me - I cant write any more tonight -
A vous
J McN. Whistler
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Notes:
1. [1896/1897?]
The letter has a deep mourning border (11 mm.), indicating a date after the death of Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more].
2. Albert Ludovici
Albert Ludovici, Jr (1852-1932), painter [more].
3. new Grosvenor
This may refer to plans to use the Grosvenor Gallery as an exhibition venue. JW had mentioned a 'Grosvenor Gallery scheme' in a letter to Mary Loyd, #07981. Eventually, the Grosvenor idea seems to have been abandoned. Instead, JW became the President of a new society, the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers. The first Council meeting took place at the Princes Rink, Knightsbridge on 23 December 1897. The Society's first Exhibition of International Art, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 1898, opened the following May. See Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, pp. 216-17.
4. Holloway
Either Charles Edward Holloway (1838-1897), watercolour painter [more], who died on 5 May 1897, or Edward Thomas Holloway (b. 1856), barrister [more].
5. we
Ludovici had been a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1887 until JW resigned as President.