Sign-In
Cart
The Performance of Art: Whistler, Wilde, and the Ten O Clock Lecture
Hardcover
Series: AD Ilissvm
American Art - GeneralIndividual Artists
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9781915401229
Publisher: Ad Ilissvm
Published: Jul 28 2026
Pages: 264
Weight: 2.10
Height: 1.15 Width: 7.02 Depth: 9.69
Language: English
A close analysis of the Ten O'Clock lecture in which Whistler declared an end to the public's participation in art. Also reveals the role played by Oscar Wilde.
On 20 February 1885, James McNeill Whistler delivered his celebrated Ten O'Clock in Piccadilly, opposite the Royal Academy. More than a lecture, it was a witty, provocative monologue attacking conventional taste and asserting art's independence from public opinion. Fashionable London society attended, including Oscar Wilde, whose own speaking tours partly inspired Whistler to take the stage.
The event was hailed as a triumph and repeated in Oxford, Cambridge and other venues. Whistler even considered an American tour, combining the talk with an exhibition to strengthen his reputation as a professional artist - distinguishing himself from Wilde's perceived dilettantism - but instead focused on publishing the text, enlisting Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé for its French translation.
The Performance of Art reassesses this episode, examining why Whistler sought the podium, the cultural context of his polemic and Wilde's role. Through close analysis, it argues that Ten O'Clock stands as a work of art in itself, illuminating Whistler's aesthetic philosophy while anticipating the widening divide between fine art and popular culture.
Also in
American Art - General
Boatload of Madmen: Surrealism and the American Avant-Garde 1920-1950 (Revised)
Dickran Tashjian
Paperback
E Is for Edward: A Centennial Celebration of the Mischievous Mind of Edward Gorey
Hischak, Gregory
The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust
Hardcover
On Island Time: A Traveler's Atlas: Illustrated Adventures on and Around the Islands of Washington and British Columbia
O'Leary, Chandler
Paperback
The Art of Air and Space: Interpretations of Flight from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
Russo, Carolyn
Hardcover
Let's Have a Parade: Celebrating 100 Macy's Parades: And the Making of an American Holiday Tradition
Keller, Kim
Hardcover
The Beverly Hills Housewife: Hockney's Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool
Cahill, James
Hardcover
Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place
Poling-Kempes, Lesley
Turner, Frederick W.
Lynes, Barbara Buhler
Hardcover
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol [50th Anniversary Edition]: From A to B and Back Again
Warhol, Andy
Paperback
Wildlife in American Art: Masterworks from the National Museum of Wildlife Art
Harris, Adam Duncan
Paperback
The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery (Updated E
Beyer, Rick
Sayles, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of the Sopranos
Imperioli, Michael
Schirripa, Steve
Paperback
Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival
Benfey, Christopher
Paperback
A History of American Tonalism, 1880-1920: Crucible of American Modernism (Third Edition)
Cleveland, David A.
Hardcover
AIDS, Art & the Origins of the Culture War: Selected Writings of Robert Atkins
Atkins, Robert
Paperback
1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific
Lemay, Kate Clarke
Caragol, Taína
Hardcover
Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture
Rudnick, Lois Palken
Paperback
The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture
Lemmey, Karen
Wofford, Tobias
Yasumura, Grace
Hardcover
The Gibson Girl and Her America: The Best Drawings of Charles Dana Gibson
Gibson, Charles Dana
Paperback
The California Camera Club: Collective Visions in the Making of the American West Volume 40
Görgen, Carolin
Hardcover
From the Merriam-Webster Archives: 50 Postcards: Art and Ephemera from America's Most Trusted Dictionary
Merriam-Webster
Other
Asian Illustration: 46 Asian Illustrators with Distinctively Sensitive and Expressive Styles
International, Pie
Paperback
At First Light: Two Centuries of Maine Artists, Their Homes and Studios
Komanecky, Michael K.
Goodyear, Anne Collins
Goodyear III, Frank H.
Hardcover
Winslow Homer and His Cullercoats Paintings: An American Artist in England's North East
Tatham, David
Paperback