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Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date September 14 2026
No Comments on Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 90m

*****

A look at the work of 19th Century painter Whistler, seen through the lens of the 2026 Tate Britain exhibition – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, 15th September

Before watching this latest Exhibition on Screen feature, I was able to visit Tate Britain’s stunning James McNeill Whistler show, which sits very much at the film’s core. The film had the effect of making me want to go back for further visits.

Exhibition on Screen’s film opens with shots of a Victorian concert hall interior where the unseen Whistler (voice: Bret Jones) is addressing the room with his spoken lecture on art, something the film will return to towards its close. After a montage of brushes, painting surfaces and palettes, establishing shots of Tate Britain take us straight into the current Whistler show. “People sometimes think of Whistler as being based in French art, and sometimes as being based in British art,” explains Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, “whereas…he was very much an independent…and very much leading the avant-garde in both those countries.”

Susan Grace Galassi, Curator Emeritas, The Frick Collection, New York, who considers Whistler one of the greatest American artists, notes that he didn’t distinguish between fine or applied art, that he was as great a painter as he was a printmaker.… Read the rest

Tags 1855, 19th century, 2026, A. O. Koritskii, America, American, American South, aristocrats, Arrangement, art, Art Critic, art historian, art history, art lessons, artisan, avant-garde, backstreets, bars, birthplace, blue Japanese porcelain, bohemian, Boston, Bret Jones, British art, brushes, butterfly, Can-Can, Carol Jacobi, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Lang Freer, Chelsea, chief engineer, Coastal Survey, coastline, coin, collection, commission, common people, concert hall, Connecticut, countryside, critic, cult of personality, curator, dancer, dandy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, David Bickerstaff, display, disreputable, draughtsmanship, draw, drawing, drawings of coastlines, East End, England, etch, etching, everyday life, exhibition, Exhibition On Screen, F.R. Leyland, fabric, falling out, family, feud, fine and applied art, Finette, France, freedom, French art, Gustave Courbet, Harmony, Henry Murger, house brushes, independent, interior, interior design, irascible, James McNeill Whistler, Japan, Japanese, Japanese porcelain, Kensington, La Vie Boheme, lecture on art, letters, life size photographs, London, Lowell, Manet, Massachusetts, military surveyor, Mme Gérard, modern life, Modernism, money and payment, monogram, moral, motif, New York, Nocturne, one good eye, ordinary, outsider, painter, painting, painting as painting, painting surfaces and palettes, panel, Paris, Patricia de Montfort, peacock, peasants, Phil Grabsky, poet, Pomfret, porcelain, Pre-Raphaelite, printmaker, printmaking, prostitutes, provocateur, Rachel Campbell-Johnston, railway construction, railway engineer, railways, Rembrandt, responsible male, river, river bridges, river painting, River Thames, Rotherhithe, rural and urban, Russia, Salon d’Exposition, self-portrait with a pipe, self-promotion, self-publishing, shelving, ships, smoking a cigarette, Southerner, Spanish wall coverings, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg to Moscow, Stephen Calloway, sting in the tail, story, struggling artist, studies, subject, surveyor, Susan Grace Galassi, Symphony, Tate Britain, temper, Thames, The Frick Collection, The Peacock Room, UK, upbringing, urban, Velázquez, Victorian, Wapping, West Point Military Academy, Whistler, Whistler’s mother, workmen

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Prime Minister

Prime Minister

Directors – Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz – 2025 – US, New Zealand – Cert. 12a – 102m

*****

A portrait of Rt Hon Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s 40th Prime Minister – out in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday, December 5th

There has never been a documentary quite like this before, and perhaps there never will be again. For one thing, it turns out that Jacinda Ardern’s partner Clarke Gayford is an established TV producer who shot a wealth of home movie footage, albeit with professional equipment, throughout the period for which she served as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. For another, this home movie footage covers her pregnancy and the early years of her daughter Neve. For a third, as an MP she became involved with a project in which MPs would record their thoughts at various points during their tenure. When she agreed to this, no-one, including herself, had any idea that she would subsequently become Prime Minister. And that’s the fourth reason: this is a portrait of a PM in office who had no intention of being either a party leader or the Prime Minister of a country. And then who suddenly found herself the sole candidate for the post of leading New Zealand’s Labour Party weeks ahead of a General Election, in which she led the party to victory,

In this documentary, Jacinda (as I shall call her) describes being the leader of a country as “the worst job in politics”.… Read the rest

Tags advice, Andrew Little, Antarctic, ascendancy, authenticity, autobiographical family footage, automatic weapons, baby, backlash, being oneself, Boris Johnson, Boston, bump, buyback programme, camped out on the lawn, child’s early years, Christchurch mosque shootings, Clarke Gayford, cleared by the authorities, closed borders, conspiracy theories, couple, COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-free, crises, Decision To Leave, Deputy Leader, electable leader, Ernest Shackleton, events, explorer, family life, focus groups, fully-rounded, General Election, gun law reform, gun laws, home movie, human lives, husbands and wives, immigration. Let’s Do This, in office, in which a man shot about a hundred people, intention, Jacinda Ardern, kindness, labour, Labour Party, Lindsay Utz, Massachusetts, Michelle Walshe, mother, motherhood, mothers and daughters, MP, MPs record thoughts, New Zealand, office, optimist, parenting duties, Parliament Building, partner, pleased to meet you, PM in office, political party, poll ratings, pregnancy, pregnant. pregnancy, press conference, prime minister, Q-Anon, redesign yourself, right wing rhetoric, semi-automatic weapons, service to others, ship locked by ice, social media, social welfare, someone who doesn’t do economics, starting a fire, stepping down, survival of his men rather, tape recordings, the worst job in politics, TV producer, United Nations, US, victory, weight on your shoulders, world manifesto

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Hello, Bookstore

Director – A.B. Zax – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 86m

*****

A small town US bookstore and its enthusiastic, bookworm owner are seen in good times and bad, bad being the global pandemic when it’s just getting by, profits plunge and the business is threatened with closure – out in UK cinemas and on demand on Friday, June 30th

Shot in a mixture of colour and black and white, this documentary about a bookstore (or bookshop, as we call them in the UK) in Lenox, Massachusetts – called, quite literally, The Bookstore – and its owner of 40 years Matt Tannenbaum opens with a short sequence in black and white showing the premises under pandemic lockdown, making this film an addition to that small but welcome group of movies that don’t pretend the pandemic never happened.

The genial Tannenbaum has to explain to callers that he’s not letting anyone in, “not for browsing, just for kerbside” and has lengthy conversations on the phone. He admits a masked delivery man with the latest shipment of books, but that’s all. “It’s so hard, it’s so boring, it’s so different,” he says. Clearly he prefers non-pandemic times, when people come into the store, and he can talk to them, find out what they like, and supply books suitable for their tastes.… Read the rest

Tags AB Zax, appeal, bankruptcy, black and white, book, bookshop, bookstore, business, colour, community, debt, family, GoFundMe, grandchild, imagination, language, Lenox, literary, lockdown, Massachusetts, Matt Tannenbaum, owner, pandemic, profit, reader, reading, reading out loud, The Bookstore, US, words, worlds