James McNeill Whistler rewrote the rules of what it meant to be an artist. A truly global figure, he pioneered innovative techniques, creating astonishingly beautiful, ethereal visions of modern life that would earn him a place as one of the most influential artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.A boldly experimental artist and cosmopolitan celebrity, Whistler disrupted the conventions of Victorian society in pursuit of truth, beauty and progress. Mobilising novel marketing and media possibilities, he was one of the first to understand the force of performance, self-publishing, satire and scandal to advance serious ideas. He built a career unrepentantly at odds with and ahead of his times - too avant-garde for the avant-garde, it was sometimes said.Illustrated with the artist's world-famous paintings alongside rarely seen works, this sumptuous monograph includes exquisite portraits, drawings, prints and designs, from as early as his teens in St Petersburg to the enigmatic late self-portraits. An international selection of writers look afresh at this audacious artist, casting new light on his unsettled life, and the way he redefined the special value of the artist in a shifting, materialist world.