Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies Celebrates 10th Anniversary … and Looks to the Future

Since its founding in 2010, the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies—comprising the Art Institute of Chicago, the Colby Museum, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and the University of Glasgow—has made a major impact on the study of James McNeill Whistler and his international circles through publications, symposia, exhibitions, digital resources, and professional development opportunities for students. The sustained productivity of the Consortium has broadened the scope of Whistler scholarship beyond the monographic, ensuring the continued relevance of an transatlantic artist who plays a significant role in the collections and institutional identities of each of the Consortium partners.

The launch of the Lunder Institute for American Art has afforded us an important opportunity to expand the impact of the Consortium. By leveraging the convening power of the Lunder Institute, along with its commitment to innovative scholarship and pedagogy, the Consortium, with the generous support of a five-year gift from the Lunder Foundation, will build on past successes and secure its legacy as an international leader in the study of Whistler and American art of the late nineteenth century.

The Lunder Institute and our Consortium partners will focus on five key programmatic areas over the next five year: paid summer internships for Colby students at the Art Institute and the Freer|Sackler; international symposia at Glasgow in 2020 and Chicago in 2021; original collections-based research and stewardship; a post-doctoral fellowship in technical art history at Glasgow and Colby; and innovative exhibitions at all Consortium-member institutions, including a multi-venue loan exhibition and accompanying publication focused on Whistler’s shopfronts and urban transformation that will open at Colby 2023.

Homepage image: James McNeill Whistler, The Shop-An Exterior, c. 1883-1885. Watercolor on paper, 7 3/4 x 11 1/4 in. (19.7 x 28.6 cm). The Lunder Collection. Accession Number: 2013.307.