Independence Day brings an American icon to the Clark Art Institute with the arrival of Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother) (1871) by James McNeill Whistler as part of the exhibition Whistler’s Mother: Grey, Black, and White, on view July 4 through September 27, 2015. Better known as Whistler’s Mother, the painting has been owned by the French state since 1891 and is in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. It is one of the most renowned works of art by an American artist and is considered by many to be the most important American painting not held on American soil. The painting serves as the centerpiece of an exhibition featuring a selection of Whistler’s prints and drawings, Japanese woodblock prints that inspired the artist, and ephemera that explore the image’s role in popular

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