ARRANGEMENT IN GREY AND BLACK is made by James Abbot McNeill Whistler(1834-1903).

Whistler was born in Massachusetts. His father, Major George Washington Whistler, who had graduated from West Point, was a civil engineer. His mother Anna McNeill came from an aristocratic southern family. When he was nine the family moved to Russia where his father was building a railroad. Six years later his father died and the family returned to America.

James himself entered West Point, but dropped out in his third year when he failed to pass a chemistry exam. He was later quoted as saying, "Had silicon been a gas I would have been a 'Major-General'."

He worked for a while as a draftsman drawing maps, but he got in trouble for drawing pictures in the margins of the maps. He finally decided to just pursue art, and in 1855 he sailed to Paris. He was to never return to America.

His first successful showing in Paris was at an exhibit of independent artists. The painting was called "Symphony in White No. 2 The White Girl".

He moved to London. He began to use musical terms to name his paintings; words such as "Arrangements", "Harmonies", "Symphonies", "Nocturnes", "Notes", and "Caprices".

He studied in Venice for a year or so and made a series of etchings there. He returned to London. Some people ridiculed his work and did not take him seriously as an artist. When he was in public, he appeared to be a careless, idle person, but when he went to work in his studio, he was just the opposite.

In 1888 he married a widow, Beatrix Godwin. Eight years later she died and he was devastated. In 1903 he became ill and died.

The portrait of Whistler's mother was almost rejected when he first presented it, but it has become a much-loved portrait in America. It was used on a postage stamp in 1934 to commemorate Mother's Day. He called the painting An Arrangement in Grey and Black. He didn't want people to just think of it as his mother, but he wanted her to represent all aging mothers. He kept the painting in his home for many years and finally offered it to the French government for the price of 120 pounds.

( Whistler's Mother is to be on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts during the summer of 2006, on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France. It is appraised at about $30 million.)