Whistler with the White Lock

Whistler with the White Lock

Thomas Robert Way

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Way worked with Whistler as a lithographic printer (and also published an important catalogue raisonné of Whistler's lithographs). This print resembles several of Whistler's self-portraits but, unlike those works,emphasizes a distinctive white lock of hair. This puzzled contemporaries who compared it to a feather resting atop the artist's head. It now seems likely that the feature was caused by Waardenburg Syndrome.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.