'Whistler's Mother' painting on display at Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum

PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- Three famous paintings on loan from France go on exhibit Friday at Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum.

The most famous of them is the portrait of James Abbott McNeill Whistler's mother, which he called "Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1" because when the artist painted it in 1871, it was a modern abstract.

"It's legacy is largely as a portrait of his mother as a kind of icon of American motherhood, which is, I think, a very sort of interesting legacy for a picture that was originally quite modern and abstract," said Emily Beeny, associate curator at the Norton Simon Museum.

The French state bought the radical portrait in 1891, and it would become the first American painting accepted by the Louvre because art enthusiasts pushed for it. The portrait of the artist's mother was then moved to the Musée d'Orsay.

Now it is in Pasadena on exchange with two other pieces from the d'Orsay: Édouard Manet's painting of his friend Émile Zola and Paul Cézanne's "The Card Players."

But Whistler's mother is America's national treasure, and it is rarely seen on tour in the U.S. The iconic American painting was last seen in Southern California in 1933.

The painting made a pretty big impression on its American tour, inspiring a 1934 Mother's Day stamp, which was unveiled for first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Tickets are on sale now at the Norton Simon Exhibit's website at nortonsimon.org. The exhibit runs from March 27 through June 22. The tickets are sold in hour increments.