Whistler's Father
Whistler's first wife, Mary R. Swift, died in 1827, after they had had three children, a girl and two boys. He later married Anna Matilda McNeill, with whom he had five sons. Whistler's Mother, a portrait of Anna, by their first son, James McNeill Whistler, is among the most famous paintings in American art.
Stone arch railroad bridges built by George Washington Whistler in 1841 are still in freight and passenger service on the CSX mainline in western Massachusetts.
He was the first Civil Engineer in America to use contour lines to show elevation and relief on maps.
Read more about this topic: George Washington Whistler
Famous quotes containing the words whistler and/or father:
“It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his “nocturnes” answered: “All of my life.” With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the moment when he painted were necessary. From that correct application of the law of causality it follows that the slightest event presupposes the inconceivable universe and, conversely, that the universe needs even the slightest of events.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
List to the yarn, as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to
me.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)