For the first time in more than a century james mcneill whistler s peacock room can be seen as the artist originally intended it now that the smithsonian s freer gallery of art has restored the.
Whistler peacock room london.
Leyland engaged the british architect richard norman shaw to remodel and redecorate his home.
The story of the beautiful connects virtual tours of the peacock room to places and faces associated with its dynamic cosmopolitan history from its controversial creation in victorian london by the expatriate american artists james mcneill whistler 1834 1903 to its subsequent use as an aesthetic laboratory in detroit by the gilded age collector and industrialist charles lang freer 1854 1919 who founded of the freer gallery of art the first art museum of the smithsonian institution.
A wealthy self made man and an aristocrat of taste leyland collected chinese porcelain as well as old masters and pre raphaelite painting.
Before the peacock room became a work of art by whistler it was the dining room in the london home of frederick leyland a shipping magnate from liverpool.
Darren waterston s filthy lucre presents a dystopian response to the celebrated peacock room of 1876 designed by the architect thomas jeckyll and made infamous by the controversial painter james abbott mcneill whistler.