Joanna Hiffernan (abt. 1843 - aft. 1903)

Born about 1843 in Ireland

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Biography

Joanna Hiffernan born about 1843, daughter of Patrick and Katherine Hiffernan. ^[1]

Joanna Hiffernan (ca. 1843 – after 1903) was an Irish artists' model and muse who was romantically linked with American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler Whistler-43 and French painter Gustave Courbet. In addition to being an artists' model, Hiffernan herself also drew and painted. ^[2]

Jo — Joanna Heffernan — drifted into his studio and his life shortly after he settled in London, in the late Fifties or early Sixties. She was the daughter of an Irishman, Patrick Heffernan, described to us as a sort of Captain Costigan, "a teacher of polite chirography," who used to speak of Whistler as "me son-in-law." Her beauty was great, her gold-red hair a marvel. And she was not only beautiful. She was intelligent, she was sympathetic. She gave Whistler the constant companionship he could not do without, for he was more than most men dependent upon the presence and sympathy of women. Her beauty lives in The White Girl, The Little White Girl, the Note Blanche that belonged to Mrs. Walter Sickert and was at Knoedler's the last time we saw it. She is one of the two figures in the Symphony in White No. III and In the Studio, she reappears in the Japanese subjects and the almost unknown Six Projects which the public will soon be able to see in the Freer Collection, Washington. If the paintings were to perish, her loveliness would survive in two of the finest of Whistler's prints, the dry-points Jo and Weary. Her devotion kept her at his side in the studio and often took her with him on his little journeys from London. She was his companion in the old inn by the riverside where he stayed in 1859 or 1860. ^[3]

After the end of his relationship with Hiffernan, Whistler left a will in her favour. It is believed that Hiffernan married a man named Abbot some time after 1881, possibly on the Continent. The art collector Charles Lang Freer met Hiffernan when he was a pallbearer at Whistler's funeral in 1903 when she came forward in heavy mourning to pay her last respects. ^[4]

She called herself Mrs Abbott, especially when selling Whistler's works around dealers. According to the Pennells, she adopted Whistler and Louisa Fanny Hanson's son Charles who was born in 1870. He came to live with her at 5 Thistle Grove. Hiffernan continued to look after him as late as 1880 when Whistler was away in Venice with Maud Franklin, his current mistress.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ Hiffernan, Joanna ('Jo') Contributed by White, Lawrence William https://www.dib.ie/biography/hiffernan-joanna-jo-a9605
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Hiffernan
3. ↑ "The Whistler journal" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell, and J. Pennell, publ 1921 p 161 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924015708740#page/n290/mode/1up
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Hiffernan
5. ↑ The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler https://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence/

See also:

• "The life of James McNeill Whistler" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell, and Joseph Pennell, publ 1911 p 67 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924008742714#page/n124/mode/1up/search/joanna