Portrait of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent Painting Reproductions 1 of 12

1856-1925

American Impressionist Painter

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 - April 14, 1925) was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist. He was an American expatriate who 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 Velazquez, who was one of Sargent's great influences. The Spanish master's spell is apparent in Sargent's The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882, a haunting interior which echoes Velazquez' Las Meninas. 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 exotic beauties such as Rosina Ferrara of Capri, and the 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. 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 his own version of the impressionist style.

Sargent painted a series of three portraits of Robert Louis Stevenson. The second, Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife (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 sculpted 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.

In a time when the art world focused, in turn, on Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism, Sargent practiced his own form of Realism, which brilliantly referenced Velazquez, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough. His seemingly effortless facility for paraphrasing the masters in a contemporary fashion led to a stream of commissioned portraits of remarkable virtuosity. Thus, he was dismissed as an anachronism at the time of his death, but appreciation of his art has since grown steadily, especially following a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1986.

John Singer Sargent is interred in Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey.

Relationships
Sargent developed a close friendship with fellow painter Paul Cesar 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 was extremely private regarding his personal life, although the painter Jacques-Emile Blanche, who was one of his early sitters, said after his death that Sargent's sex life "was notorious in Paris, and in Venice, positively scandalous. He was a frenzied bugger." The truth of this may never be established. However most scholars now presume he was homosexual; not only because of his personal associations (such as with Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou), but because of the way his sensibility shaped his art. This includes not only the sensuality of his male nudes (most particularly his portrait of Thomas E. McKeller), but also the exotic 'otherness' implicit in his general work. It is been suggested that it was this quality which appealed to the sympathies of his many Jewish clients which he painted in the 1890s.

270 Sargent Paintings

Frances Sherborne Ridley Watts, 1877 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Frances Sherborne Ridley Watts 1877

Oil Painting
$841
Canvas Print
$60.33
SKU: SAR-1702
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 105.9 x 81.3 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA

The Oyster Gatherers of Cancale, 1878 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Oyster Gatherers of Cancale 1878

Oil Painting
$1073
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1703
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 78.7 x 123 cm
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

A Capriote, 1878 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

A Capriote 1878

Oil Painting
$756
Canvas Print
$62.68
SKU: SAR-1704
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 76.8 x 63.2 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Capri, 1878 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Capri 1878

Oil Painting
$662
SKU: SAR-1705
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Rosina, 1878 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Rosina 1878

Oil Painting
$457
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1706
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 35.5 x 18 cm
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

Madame Edouard Pailleron, 1879 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Madame Edouard Pailleron 1879

Oil Painting
$913
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1707
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 211 x 104.5 cm
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Carolus-Duran, 1879 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Carolus-Duran 1879

Oil Painting
$813
Canvas Print
$62.68
SKU: SAR-1708
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 116.8 x 96 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

In the Luxembourg Gardens, 1879 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

In the Luxembourg Gardens 1879

Oil Painting
$607
Canvas Print
$53.14
SKU: SAR-1709
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 65.7 x 92.4 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA

Alhambra, Patio de la Reja, 1879 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Alhambra, Patio de la Reja 1879

Oil Painting
$395
SKU: SAR-1710
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Fumee d'Ambre Gris (Smoke of Ambergris), 1880 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Fumee d'Ambre Gris (Smoke of Ambergris) 1880

Oil Painting
$689
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1711
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 139 x 90.6 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Spanish Dancer, c.1880/81 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Spanish Dancer c.1880/81

Oil Painting
$725
SKU: SAR-1712
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

A Venetian Interior, c.1880/82 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

A Venetian Interior c.1880/82

Oil Painting
$696
Canvas Print
$60.33
SKU: SAR-1713
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 49.8 x 60.7 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Venetian Street, c.1880/82 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Venetian Street c.1880/82

Oil Painting
$633
SKU: SAR-1714
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Venetian Onion Seller, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Venetian Onion Seller 1882

Oil Painting
$803
Canvas Print
$56.18
SKU: SAR-1715
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 95 x 70 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain

Venetian Interior, c.1880/82 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Venetian Interior c.1880/82

Oil Painting
$765
Canvas Print
$59.64
SKU: SAR-1716
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 63.3 x 86.8 cm
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA

Aaron Augustus Healy, 1907 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Aaron Augustus Healy 1907

Oil Painting
$793
Canvas Print
$65.45
SKU: SAR-1717
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 86.5 x 73 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Portrait of Edouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron, 1881 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Edouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron 1881

Oil Painting
$913
Canvas Print
$65.04
SKU: SAR-1718
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 152.4 x 175.2 cm
Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, USA

The Sulphur Match, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Sulphur Match 1882

Oil Painting
$603
SKU: SAR-1719
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 58.2 x 41.5 cm
Private Collection

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1884 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) 1884

Oil Painting
$791
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1720
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 208.6 x 110 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

El Jaleo, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

El Jaleo 1882

Oil Painting
$855
Canvas Print
$50.79
SKU: SAR-1721
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 232 x 348 cm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA

Italian Girl with Fan, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Italian Girl with Fan 1882

Oil Painting
$771
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1722
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 238 x 133.4 cm
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, USA

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit 1882

Oil Painting
$785
SKU: SAR-1723
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Leaving Church, Campo San Canciano, Venice, c.1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Leaving Church, Campo San Canciano, Venice c.1882

Oil Painting
$762
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-1724
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Misses Vickers, 1884 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Misses Vickers 1884

Oil Painting
$1009
Canvas Print
$56.88
SKU: SAR-1725
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 137.8 x 183 cm
Galleries and Museums, Sheffield, United Kingdom

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