The year 2024 marked the 150 anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition. One artist who declined an invitation to join Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Monet and a select group of friends in their revolutionary Paris show in 1874 was James McNeill Whistler. He was then living in London, busily creating atmospheric pictures of Chelsea and the Thames.

Just ahead of a retrospective at Tate Britain - the first major European exhibition of Whistler’s work in 30 years - running 21 May to 27 September this lecture looks at Whistler’s work and his influence on Walter Sickert, Philip Wilson Steer, Theodore Roussel and Paul Maitland, who together exhibited as 'the London Impressionists'.