Académie Carmen

"[4] Instructors for the first year were Whistler (painting) and American sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies (life drawing).

The women's class was led by Irish painter Inez Eleanor Bate for the length of the school's tenure.

[2] In a 1906 magazine article, Cuneo described Whistler's eccentricities, his inability to communicate effectively as a teacher, and his strong favoritism toward the women's class:[3] "Instead of sitting down in the usual French fashion and giving each pupil in turn a clear and matter-of-fact criticism, Whistler airily picked his way amongst the easels, glancing here and there, ignoring some canvases altogether, greeting others with 'Yes—yes.'

[2] The frustration of the male students was expressed in a poem Whistler found scrawled on a wall of the men's studio: I bought a palette just like his,His colours and his brush.The devil of it is, you see,I did not buy his touch.

Whistler's apprentice Inez Eleanor Bate recalled: "[A]t the latter part of the season he often refused to criticize in the men's class at all.

[6] Whistler's hopes of establishing an art school in London under the management of apprentices Inez Eleanor Bate and Clifford Addams, who married in 1900, were defeated by his continued poor health.