John Singer Sargent
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John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was a painter known for his portraits. He is usually thought of as an American artist, although he lived most of his life in Europe. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American parents. He studied in Italy and Germany, and then in Paris under Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran.
Biography and work
Sargent's portraits subtly capture the individuality and personality of the sitters; his most ardent admirers think he is matched in this only by Diego Velázquez, who was one of Sargent's great influences. Sargent's Portrait of Madame X, done in 1884, is now considered one of his best works, and was the artist's personal favorite. However, at the time it was unveiled in Paris at the 1884 Salon, it aroused such a negative reaction that it prompted Sargent to move to London. Many years before the Mme. X. scandal of 1884, he painted beauties from marginal cultural groups such as the luscious Rosina Ferrara of Capri, his muse, and the pretty Spanish expatriate model, [Carmela Bertagna].
Although Sargent lived in the United States for less than one year, some of his best work is in the U.S., including his decorations for the Boston Public Library[link]. He also completed portraits of two U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Sargent is usually not thought of as an Impressionist painter, but he sometimes used Impressionistic techniques to great effect, and his [Claude Monet Painting at the Edge of a Wood] is rendered in an Impressionist style.
Sargent painted a series of three portraits of Robert Louis Stevenson. The second, Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife[link] (1885), was one of his best known.
During the greater part of Sargent's career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolours, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. About 1910 Sargent forsook portrait painting and focused on landscapes in his later years; he also dabbled with sculpting later in life. As a concession to the insatiable demand of wealthy patrons for portraits, however, he continued to dash off rapid charcoal portrait sketches for them, which he called "Mugs". Forty-six of these, spanning the years 1890-1916, were exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1916[link].
In a time when the art world was focused on Impressionism and emphasizing artistic individuality, Sargent emphasized his own form of Realism and regularly did commissioned portraits of the wealthy, such as the one of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Newton Phelps-Stokes in 1897. Thus, he was dismissed as an anachronism at the time, but appreciation of his art has grown since his death.
John Singer Sargent is interred in Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey.
Relationships
Sargent developed a close friendship with fellow painter Paul César Helleu. They met in Paris in 1878 when Singer was 22 and Helleu was 18. Sargent painted both Helleu and his wife Alice on several occasions.Sargent never married and some have speculated that Sargent was homosexual, on the basis of the homoerotic qualities of some of his paintings of men.: : However, there is no contemporary evidence of his sexual relationships, if any, with either sex, and his paintings of women and, indeed, children, are more numerous and at least as sensual as his paintings of men.
Legacy
Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife sold in 2004 for $8.8 million to Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn to be installed at his newest casino, Wynn Las Vegas.
References
See also
- The portrait of the composer Gabriel Fauré by John Singer Sargent in that article.
- The portrait of John D. Rockefeller by John Singer Sargent in that article
External links
- [Art Renewal Center - Bio, and many high res images of Sargent's work]
- [John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery and biography]
- [Sargent at Harvard]
- [The Sargent Murals at the Boston Public Library]
- [Sargent on Museum Web Paris]
- [John Singer Sargent News, Bio and Artwork]
- [John Singer Sargent: Painting Madame X] is a biographical one-act play about Sargent.
- [International Foundation Can Mossenya - Jorge Luis Borges, celebrates John Singer Sargent in Majorca, Spain]
- [On his holidays (1901)] at the [Lady Lever Art Gallery]
- [Lady Agnew of Lochnaw on National Gallery of Scotland Web]
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