James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based painter and etcher. Averse to sentimentality in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". He took to signing his paintings with a stylized butterfly, possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for Whistler's art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, in contrast to his flamboyant public persona.

Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in the United States; the house is now preserved as the Whistler House Museum of Art. Whistler is best known for the nearly monochromatic full-length figure titled Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, but usually referred to as Whistler's Mother. The painting was later purchased by the French government. Though American, Whistler lived and worked mainly in Britain and France. Whistler's painting The White Girl (1862) caused controversy when exhibited in London and, later, at the Salon des Refusés in Paris. The painting epitomizes his theory that art should essentially be concerned with the beautiful arrangement of colors in harmony, not with the accurate portrayal of the natural world.

Despite seemingly courting controversy wherever he went, Whistler achieved worldwide recognition during his lifetime. In 1884 he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1892 he was made an officer of the Legion d'Honneur in France and he became a charter member and first president of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, & Gravers in 1898. Whistler's belief that art should concentrate on the arrangement of colors led many critics to see his work as a precursor of abstract art.

He is buried at St. Nicholas's Church in Chiswick, London.