The Butterfly and The Bat: Whistler and Montesquiou

Another in-depth exhibition devoted to a single painting in The Frick Collection, this one focused on Whistler's celebrated portrait Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, first exhibited in 1894. Complementing Whistler's masterpiece were a group of little-known portraits of Whistler and examples of his pastels, etchings, and lithographs; other portraits of Montesquiou by late nineteenth-century artists and photographers, first editions of his poetry, a reconstruction of his evening clothes, and other curious memorabilia; major works by artists Montesquiou patronized and wrote about, ranging from Helleu to Rodin; and a remarkable group of full-length male portraits from the 1890s.