The Street of Wonderful Possibilities: Whistler, Wilde & Sargent in Tite Street by Devon Cox 2015

This book is a good read for anyone interested in an illustrated history and biography of London's bohemian enclave, Chelsea, at a time when artists dined at Buckingham Palace. It is the story of immorality, scandal and the dramatic aesthetes living on Tite Street. Historian Devon Cox, an American, moved in 2005 to Chelsea, England and fell in love with its history. This is his first book.

For Oscar Wilde, who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray while living on Tite Street, it was brimming "with wonderful possibilities." Whistler built his controversial White House on Tite Street and believed it was "the birthplace of art" as he fed his enthusiasm into the fledgling Aesthetic Movement, painting Harmony in Pink and Grey while Sargent produced Lady Agnew. London's Tite Street is portrayed between 1870's and 1930's at the fin de siècle.

Congratulations to Devon Cox!

The Street of Wonderful Possibilities by Devon Cox 2015

Frances Lincoln

US $28.97 UK £25

Whistler left Lowell, MA for Paris at twenty-one years old in 1855 headed for the Rive Gauche. Whistler had been expelled from Westpoint Military Academy for a sharp tongue. In Paris, he found open studios, the Paris Salon, a mix of loose women, shared discussions, and lead-based paint. Arriving in London at the Royal Academy, he met closed-studios where artists "opened the doors on the chain!"

His nickname on Tite Street was "Butterfly." Unorthodox, novel and whimsical, he gave legendary Sunday Breakfasts at his White House, designed with architect E.W. Godwin. It encompassed four floors with the fourth dedicated to his studio. Working in his open studio he welcomed, and put to work, visitors from continents as far as Australia at the "Whistler School."

Whistler's lover, model, and his live-in secretary was Joanna Hifferman, or Jo, her portrait painted below.

Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, 1862. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Harris Whittemore Collection)

Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1882. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

"He is a sort of Wagner in painting.... a Wagner who is always composing beautiful themes, exquisite conceptions of harmony, leaving them unfinished."—Critic

Oscar Wilde reading a copy of Poems, photographed by Napoleon Sarony, 1882. (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.)

"I do not know Mr. Wilde, and not to know Mr. Wilde is not to be known."—Prince of Wales (Bertie)

Constance and Cyril Wilde, 1889. (Courtesy Merlin Holland)

Madame X ( Madame Pierre Gautreaux) by John Singer Sargent, 1883-4. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Johns S. Sargent, R. A. by George Percy Jacombe-Hood, c.1895 (Courtesy Abbott and Holder Ltd., London)

A gathering of aesthetes and dandies on Tite Street, clockwise from right: Frank Miles, the Hon. Frederick Lawless, Julian Story, Waldo Story and Whistler, 1881. (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.)

For Oscar Wilde, who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray while living on Tite Street, it was brimming "with wonderful possibilities." Whistler built his controversial White House on Tite Street and believed it was "the birthplace of art" as he fed his enthusiasm into the fledgling Aesthetic Movement, painting Harmony in Pink and Grey while Sargent produced Lady Agnew. London's Tite Street is portrayed between 1870's and 1930's at the fin de siècle.

Congratulations to Devon Cox!

The Street of Wonderful Possibilities by Devon Cox 2015

Frances Lincoln

US $28.97 UK £25

Whistler left Lowell, MA for Paris at twenty-one years old in 1855 headed for the Rive Gauche. Whistler had been expelled from Westpoint Military Academy for a sharp tongue. In Paris, he found open studios, the Paris Salon, a mix of loose women, shared discussions, and lead-based paint. Arriving in London at the Royal Academy, he met closed-studios where artists "opened the doors on the chain!"

His nickname on Tite Street was "Butterfly." Unorthodox, novel and whimsical, he gave legendary Sunday Breakfasts at his White House, designed with architect E.W. Godwin. It encompassed four floors with the fourth dedicated to his studio. Working in his open studio he welcomed, and put to work, visitors from continents as far as Australia at the "Whistler School."

Whistler's lover, model, and his live-in secretary was Joanna Hifferman, or Jo, her portrait painted below.

Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, 1862. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Harris Whittemore Collection)

Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1882. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

"He is a sort of Wagner in painting.... a Wagner who is always composing beautiful themes, exquisite conceptions of harmony, leaving them unfinished."—Critic

Oscar Wilde reading a copy of Poems, photographed by Napoleon Sarony, 1882. (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.)

"I do not know Mr. Wilde, and not to know Mr. Wilde is not to be known."—Prince of Wales (Bertie)

Constance and Cyril Wilde, 1889. (Courtesy Merlin Holland)

Madame X ( Madame Pierre Gautreaux) by John Singer Sargent, 1883-4. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Johns S. Sargent, R. A. by George Percy Jacombe-Hood, c.1895 (Courtesy Abbott and Holder Ltd., London)

A gathering of aesthetes and dandies on Tite Street, clockwise from right: Frank Miles, the Hon. Frederick Lawless, Julian Story, Waldo Story and Whistler, 1881. (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.)