Walter Greaves

Walter T. Spencer, London
Carl B. Spitzer
Gifted from the above in 1910

"Portrait of Whistler," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, IV, November 1910, illustrated
The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 70-71, pl. 337, illustrated

Walter Greaves' relationship with Whistler was fraught with intrigue, marked by scandal, and characterized by adoration and hero worship. Walter and his brother Henry met Whistler in 1863, when Whistler fortuitously became their neighbor at Lindsey Row in Chelsea, London. The brothers became Whistler's studio assistants, buying his art supplies, and preparing his canvases and colors. They often rowed together on the Thames, and painter Sir George Clausen claimed that Walter inspired Whistler's river scenes (see Tom Pocock, Chelsea Reach: The Brutal Friendship of Whistler and Walter Greaves, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970, p. 82). The Greaves brothers were devoted followers for over fifteen years, and remained sycophantic despite Whistler's mercurial moods and groundless snubs. Walter often exclaimed that he "went mad over Whistler," and as Gordon Fleming points out, "Whistler's domination over the brother's was total. They even tried to look like him. They wore hats, ties and gloves like his, and they grew little moustaches" (James Abbott McNeill Whistler: A Life, New York: St. Martin's, 1991, p. 100). Indeed, Walter's tight naive style yielded to a looser, brushier technique under Whistler's commanding influence. "He taught us to paint'' commented Walter, and "we taught him the waterman's jerk'' (E.R. and J. Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1909, p. 107).

Whistler's significant influence can be readily discerned in Greaves' present portrait, a psychologically powerful homage to his mentor. The exagerrated air of his confrontational and unapologetic gaze, dramatically half shrouded in darkness, aptly communicates his infamous and unrelenting egoism. Whistler emerges from the dark background though the sheer force of his personality. Fellow artist Sir John Lavery recalled that Whistler's "eyebrows were thick and black, his eyes sharp as needles-he had beautiful hands, though somewhat clawlike-and his general appearance was that of a small alert ringmaster, whip in hand" (as quoted in Edgar Munhall, Whistler and Montesquiou: The Butterfly and the Bat, New York: exh. cat., Frick Collection, 1995, p. 27).

Greaves' singular major artistic success in 1910 was marred by widespread controversy. In a one-man show at the Goupil Gallery, London, he exhibited 50 paintings, which influential writer Clutton-Brock of The Times considered remarkable and original, providing a glowing review for the relatively unknown painter. However, this unexpected achievement for the self proclaimed "pupil of Whistler," created an outrageous art scandal, venomously spearheaded by Whistler biographer Joseph Pennell. At his most vociferous, Pennell claimed many of the exhibited works were really attributable to Whistler.