Tickets are selling out fast for 'The Taste for Whistler' on Thursday July 17. The lecture will be held in the Hunterian Art Gallery's newly refurbished Lecture Theatre at 6.00pm and will be followed by a wine reception in the Whistler exhibitions.

The Hunterian Art Gallery is delighted to confirm that Charles Saumarez Smith, the flamboyant new director of London's National Gallery, will be delivering the lecture, entitled "The Taste for Whistler" on July 17 - the anniversary of Whistler's death exactly 100 years to the day.

The lecture will look at changing attitudes towards Whistler's art in museums and galleries over the past 100 years and the story behind several Whistler paintings which were gifted to the National Gallery in 1918.

Mr Saumarez Smith said: 'I am very much looking forward to coming to Glasgow both to give the Whistler centenary lecture and to see the current Whistler exhibition at the Hunterian Art Gallery - a collection which I know reasonably well and greatly admire'.

Some tickets are still available and cost £5.00. Please contact Jo Anthony on 0141 330 3100 or J.Anthony@museum.gla.ac.uk for further details.

For further details about the Whistler Centenary, visit Whistler 2003

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First published: 11 July 2003