The second great public event in Whistler’s career was his election in 1886 to the Presidency of the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, which made exciting history at the time. Whistler was just one of those people who want everything in the world arranged after some secret pattern of their own. They make the best reformers. But what could be a more strange spectacle than the revolutionary Whistler in the presidential chair of the staidest of art societies? The desire for advertisement overcoming the scruples of older members, Whistler’s election as a member took place just before their winter exhibition in 1884. The Times of the 3rd of December 1884 recorded the fact that artistic society was startled by the news that this most wayward of painters had found a home among the men of Suffolk Street—of all people in the world.

His humour did not forsake him in this new environment. Mr. Horseley, R.A., lecturing before the Church Congress, attacked the nude models, especially and in particular at the Royal Academy Schools. Shortly after this, in sending a pastel of a nude to the Society of British Artists, Whistler attached the words “Horseley soit qui mal y pense,” and was only prevailed upon to remove them by the fear of older members that the attack upon an Academician might lead up to a libel case with the Royal Academy. The Royal Academy students at the time used to drape the legs of the chairs and tables when Mr. Horseley visited the schools. That was in 1885. It was the following year that Whistler was elected President of the Society for which he got a Royal Charter, and to which by his methods—as President—he brought fame for ever as the R.B.A.

Many of the electors who had supported his membership had concluded that he was not likely to take much part in the workings of the Society. However, he came to the meetings and to their surprise took an interest in the proceedings, proffering advice, intruding new ideas, not often welcomed by the older artists. He invited some of the members to one of his famous Sunday breakfasts at his studio in Tite Street, and regaled them with his theories of art. They were influenced by his personality and the character of the elections altered, men of the newer movements were elected, and they soon formed a small but very energetic and loyal group around Whistler, finally acquiring sufficient power to elect him as we have shown into the President’s chair. After that the meetings of the Society were exhilarating in the extreme, and Whistler talked with extreme brilliance to the members, and somehow got his way until their Gallery was hung with one line of pictures upon a carefully chosen background.

But the opposition became too strong from members who wished to run the exhibition on its old lines, and certainly the funds were suffering from these very high ideals. His opponents “brought up the maimed, the halt, and the blind,” “all except corpses, don’t you know!” as Whistler put it, the oldest members, the fact of whose membership had up to that time lingered only perhaps in their own memory, and thus effected his out-voting at the next election. Whistler congratulated them, for, as he explained, no longer was the right man in the wrong place. “You see,” he said, referring to the group of his followers who resigned with him, “the ‘Artists’ have come out and the ‘British’ remain.”

It was the first time in England that pictures had been so artistically arranged. No pictures were badly hung, no member had anything to complain of as far as that went. But they were disturbed at the loss of probable sales which they calculated the empty spaces on the walls might be taken to signify.

On the night of the election which ended the Whistler dynasty there was great excitement, and the younger members let off steam by playing in the passages during the counting of the votes.

The Society had come into existence with aims of its own. An order of art was represented which had to be represented somewhere. A great amount of capable work for which the Academy had not room was on view here, representative of the everyday activity of London studio life. It was amusing to think of Whistler as the President of this Society as it was constituted in those days—and absurd. He could have nothing in common with its homely aims. But it was an advertisement for the Society and for him, he probably did not share the illusions of his followers that he was in the right place.

When in after years the leaders of the modern movement formed themselves into the International Society, in 1898, through the organisation of Mr. Francis Howard, it was inevitable and natural that Whistler should be the President, but at the British Artists it was simply a case of cuckoo and the sparrow’s nest. With his success, the original element of the Society must have gone elsewhere leaving him in possession of their building.

It was fitting that Sir Joshua Reynolds should be the President of an Academy whose theories he embraced but exposited with greater genius. But Whistler’s theories had no relation whatever to the body of which he was thus made the head, and he did not surpass in everything as Sir Joshua; the significance of his genius resting rather with the fact that it is epochal.

However, as all this affair happened just at the time when paradox was coming into vogue, there was that much only about it that was fitting. After these events Whistler, who was invited on to the Jury of the “New Salon” then forming, left for Paris.

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