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Exhibition Preview A New Style of PortraitureWhen first exhibited in the United States in 1881, Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl created a sensation among artists. The next year, scores of American artists took up the challenge of portraying their subjects in white and set against a light background. Whistler's white-on-white color scheme was very unusual at the time, and his choice of title – referring to a symphony– associates the painting with the suggestive nature of music. In Robert Henri's The Art Student, a young woman strikes the same pose as Whistler's White Girl but instead of shades of white, Henri uses a dark palette. His model also holds the tools of her trade, a clutch of paintbrushes, in place of a symbolically laden lily.
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