Edgar Degas meets James Abbott McNeill Whistler in the work of Walter Sickert. Born in Munich in 1860, raised in England from the age of 8, Sickert was educated at King’s College School, spent a few years acting, and then took up painting. He studied first with Whistler, and then in Paris took guidance from Degas. In the early 1900s, Sickert rose to prominence in London, a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionists. His paintings are somber, urban, and unafraid of base truth—hence his “Camden Town Murder” series of four paintings, their subject a prostitute whose throat was slit in 1907. Indeed, Sickert was fascinated by Jack the Ripper, and some took this to mean that Sickert himself might be Jack. In 1976, Stephen Knight’s book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, proposed that Sickert was the serial killer’s unwilling accomplice. This exhibition, the Tate’s first on the artist in 60 years, explores Sickert’s theatrical imagination and enigmatic persona.
—Elena Clavarino

Travels to: Petit Palais, Paris (October 14, 2022 to January 29, 2023)