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Walter Greaves
(1846 - 1930)
Whistler on the Thames, 1874
Institutional Collection
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Walter Greaves (1846 - 1930)
Size:
Height – 88.3cm
Width – 71.5cm
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.162.
Walter Greaves met James Abbott McNeill Whistle in 1863.. Greaves was captivated by Whistler and developed a friendship with him, becoming, along with his brother Henry, (also an artists) his assistant and pupil. Walter Greaves recalled, “We used to get ready his colours and canvasses, prepare the grey distemper ground which he so liked working upon, and painted the mackerel-back pattern on the frames.” During the 1870’s Greaves made a series of portraits of Whistler, with the Thames as a backdrop. Their friendship was jeopardized in the early 1880s when Joseph Pennell, Whistler’s friend and biographer, damaged Greaves reputation by suggesting that some of his canvases had in fact been painted by Whistler – a controversy that Greaves reputation never recovered from.
The son of Charles William Greaves, a Chelsea boat builder and waterman, and his wife, Elizabeth Greenway, Greaves was born in 1846 at 31 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London. His father had been J. M. W. Turner’s boatman. Greaves and one of his brothers, Henry Greaves (1844’1904), met Whistler in 1863, introducing him to the sights of the River Thames, and becoming his studio assistants, pupils and close friends for over 20 years.
The American painter later used these Thames expeditions for inspiration when painting his ‘nocturne’ views of the river at night. “He taught us to paint”, Walter Greaves said, “and we taught him the waterman’s jerk”.
