Whistler House Museum of Art

Birthplace of James McNeill Whistler, now housing 19th-century American art including prints by the master

The Whistler House Museum of Art occupies the 1823 Federal-style house where James McNeill Whistler was born, on Worthen Street in downtown Lowell. The museum holds a collection of 19th-century American art, including a fine selection of Whistler's own etchings and lithographs — technically demanding works that show a different side of the artist usually known for his tonalist paintings.

The house itself is beautifully preserved and the rooms are intimate and well curated. Beyond Whistler, the collection includes works by other 19th-century New England artists that give a good sense of the era. The Parker Gallery next door hosts rotating exhibitions of regional art. Worth combining with a walk through the national historical park, which is directly adjacent.

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A story
James McNeill Whistler was born in Lowell in 1834, the son of a military engineer, and spent only a few years of his childhood here before his family moved. He later became one of the most influential American artists of the 19th century — best known for "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1," universally called "Whistler's Mother." Whistler himself was not particularly fond of Lowell and reportedly tried to obscure the connection in later life, claiming to have been born in St. Petersburg, Russia.