Everyone has seen the painting "Whistler's Mother". Whistler assigned the highfalutin name "Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1" to the painting of his mum. He also made "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 2" which I call Whistler's Buddy. He got his friend Thomas Carlyle, Scottish historian, to sit for the painting in 1873. As a young man, John McNeill Whistler was a screw-up. He managed to get kicked out of West Point for drinking and carousing by the commandant, one Robert E. Lee. He removed to Paris, avoiding the American Civil War, and hung out with the Parisan artistè crowd.