But, by such tactics, that conservative majority was being gradually eroded. The Impressionist clique continued to control the picture-selection process. The constitution was altered during 1889, and an eight-man ‘executive committee’ created, with Sickert, Steer, Brown, and Roussel all elected to it.29 As some contemporary commentators complained, pictures by artists inimical to the aims of the group were now frequently excluded, or ‘outrageously skied’ at exhibition. In the face of such ‘intrigue and effrontery’ not a few painters resigned from the club, thus presenting the Impressionist clique with an even clearer run.30
Certainly they had it very much their own way in 1889. The connection with the established leaders of French Impressionism was loudly bruited at the annual exhibition.* An uncatalogued selection of black-and-white works, almost certainly put together by Sickert, was hung in the little passage leading through to the main gallery. Besides the inevitable Keene drawings, it included several prints by Whistler (who also had a pastel in the exhibition proper), together with four of the lithographs G. W. Thornley had made from Degas’ pictures (and about which Sickert had written in the New York Herald).31 In addition there were also ‘a few photographs from masterpieces by Degas and Manet’.32 Building upon his success of the previous year, Sickert’s own submission to the show was another slice of popular metropolitan life: Collins’s Music Hall, Islington Green. In its composition, as in its theatrical matter, it proclaimed a continuing debt to Degas – though Sickert, playing his double game, hastened to deny the connection. From the aesthetic high ground staked out by Whistler in the Ten o’Clock Lecture, he defended himself against any suggestions that he was merely aping modern French models:
It is surely unnecessary to go so far afield as Paris to find an explanation of the fact that a Londoner should seek to render on canvas a familiar and striking scene in the midst of the town in which he lives … I found myself one night in the little hall off Islington Green. At a given moment I was intensely impressed by the pictorial beauty of the scene, created by the coincidence of a number of fortuitous elements of form and colour. A graceful girl leaning forward from the stage, to accentuate the refrain of one of the sentimental ballads so dear to the frequenters of the halls, evoked a spontaneous movement of sympathy and attention in an audience whose sombre tones threw into more brilliant relief the animated movement of the singer, bathed as she was in a ray of green limelight from the centre of the roof, and from below in the yellow radiance of the footlights.33
The rising status of both Sickert and his group was confirmed when he, together with Starr and Steer, was invited to exhibit in the ‘British Fine Art Section’ of the Universal Exhibition, which opened in Paris that May. (Sickert sent his little panel of the red-fronted butcher’s shop34.) He did not, however, dwell upon his successes. In what was becoming an established pattern, his small assertion of independence was almost immediately countered by an act of obeisance to Whistler. Sickert balanced his NEAC activities and achievements with an offer to arrange a retrospective exhibition of Whistler’s work. He also suggested an even more ambitious scheme to produce ‘a catalogue déraisonné’ of Whistler’s prints.35 It was probably no less than Whistler felt he deserved. He was in ebullient mood. He had been made an ‘Honorary Member’ of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich after exhibiting at their International Art Show the previous year; and he was to be the guest of honour at two gala dinners arranged by his fellow artists that spring. The first was held in Paris on 28 April 1889, the other at the Criterion restaurant in Piccadilly Circus on 1 May. Sickert attended the London event, though he did not help organize it. He was too involved with preparations for the Whistler exhibition, which opened on the same day.
The exhibition venue was an unconventional one. Sickert had been given the use of three little first-floor rooms in an old Queen Anne house at 29 Queen Square, Bloomsbury – the building was the home of the College for Working Men and Women. In this limited space he had gathered together ‘a little collection of masterpieces’: pastels, watercolours, and etchings, together with several important pictures, including the portraits of Rosa Corda, Thomas Carlyle, and the artist’s mother. From Irving, Sickert borrowed the picture of the actor as King Philip (the image that had first awakened him to Whistler’s genius). It was an impressive assemblage, as Sickert hastened to point out in the New York Herald.36 For no very obvious reason the Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, was asked to open the exhibition.* Nevertheless, despite this ploy, the show was not a success. It was unable to transcend its unpropitious setting. Press coverage was scant, and visitors rare.
Amongst the few people who did attend were two Americans recently settled in London. Joseph Pennell, then in his early thirties, had already established a reputation as an accomplished draughtsman and illustrator; his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell, was a prolific journalist. Together they had succeeded Shaw in writing the art criticism for The Star. They were amazed by the show, and ‘wrote urgently in the Star’, urging everyone ‘who cared for good work … to see this exhibition of “the man who has done more to influence artists than any other modern”’.37 It was the first blast of what would become an almost interminable fanfare over the ensuing years, as the Pennells established themselves as the jealous champions of Whistler’s name and reputation. Their championship came to have awkward consequences for Sickert’s own relationship with Whistler but, at this early stage, he was merely happy to meet two sympathetic new critics, and grateful to them for giving the show a generous puff.
If there was a sense of disappointment about the impact of the exhibition, neither Sickert nor Whistler admitted it. They continued to see each other socially. Sickert would still be invited to lunch at Whistler’s studio, especially when his favourite ‘gumbo soup’ was being served,38 and the Whistlers dined at Broadhurst Gardens.* Nevertheless, beneath the jollity, and the offers of assistance, there remained the sense that Sickert’s attention was elsewhere. Nothing came of the plans for a catalogue of Whistler’s prints: the current of Sickert’s other interests had become too strong. On 25 May 1889, Ellen and he bought Degas’ magnificent Répétition d’un Ballet sur la Scène at Christie’s in the sale of the Henry Hill collection. It was, Sickert noted, similar in composition to the ‘monochrome’ they had seen at M. Mulbacher’s apartment. They paid only £74 for it.39
In June, Sickert resigned his post on the New York Herald, claiming that ‘to do the work thoroughly