Filthy Lucre: Whistler’s Peacock Room Reimagined


Sumptuous installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Darren Waterston reimagining a room designed by James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

OK this one takes a lot of setting up, stick with me. Whistler was commissioned by Frederick Richard Leyland to design a room to display his ceramics collection however he over stepped the brief creating Harmony in Blue and Gold otherwise called the Peacock Room. Leyland refused to pay in full which led to a vitriolic feud and the painting, by Whistler, of “Filthy Lucre (The Creditor)” which shows Leyland as a peacock in a frilled shirt.

In this installation Waterston presents “an unsettling re-interpretation” of the room which distorts the space and shows it in a state of decay. You enter the space where you see the ghost of the fine room, shelves have broken, ceramics have smashed, vases have glazes that look like water damage, the ceiling shows signs of buckling and gold decoration has melted across the floor and into stalactites

I found the work beautiful but very eerie like going into a long abandoned house. It was a great relief to come out and see a video of the room as it still is, in all its glory, in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington.  

Closes 3 May 2020

Review
Guardian

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