Family & Friends Sunday: Whistler’s World

Visit us virtually or find art activity kits to enjoy with your friends or family group in the galleries.

This month, enjoy art-inspired activities inspired by James McNeill Whistler’s etchings in Visions of Venice including:

FREE FAMILY ACTIVITY KIT | MUSEUM LOBBY

Pick up our Visions of Venice Family Activity Art Kit and try your hand at scratchboard art! Quantities are limited; one per person.

ART MAKING ACTIVITIES | EXPLORE AT HOME

D.I.Y. Scratch Art (ages 4 and up)

Foil Engraving

CURATOR’S CONVERSATION: “Visions of Venice” with Dana E. Cowen

Watch the Ackland’s Sheldon Peck Curator of European and American Art before 1950, Dana E. Cowen, as she speaks about Visions of Venice.

VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE PEACOCK ROOM | 2:30 P.M. EDT

Join the Ackland as we ‘visit’ the Freer Gallery of Art in D.C., space is limited to 15 households. The tour will be one hour in length and suitable for all ages.

The Peacock Room and American Art

Freer Gallery of Art founder Charles Lang Freer did not only acquire diverse holdings of Asian art; he also assembled outstanding examples of American art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, the Freer Gallery of Art houses the world’s largest collection of works by James McNeill Whistler, including his famed Peacock Room.

Registration will open on June 18th. Email acklandrsvp@unc.edu with any registration issues. A Zoom link will be provided in the days leading up to the online tour.

WHISTLER’S NORTH CAROLINA CONNECTION

Whistler’s mother, Anna, was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is the subject of his famous work, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, commonly known as Whistler’s Mother. The piece resides in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.

Read several of her letters published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1925. Her final letter in this ten-page document indicates that her son, James, is about to travel to Venice to make a set of twelve etchings – sound familiar?