Portrait of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent Painting Reproductions 5 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

Henry G. Marquand, 1897 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Henry G. Marquand 1897

Oil Painting
$875
Canvas Print
$61.03
SKU: SAR-15174
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 132 x 106 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Ada Rehan, c.1894/95 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Ada Rehan c.1894/95

Oil Painting
$949
Canvas Print
$67.88
SKU: SAR-15175
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 236.2 x 127.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Mountain Stream, c.1912/14 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mountain Stream c.1912/14

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15176
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 34.9 x 53.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Tyrolese Crucifix, 1914 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Tyrolese Crucifix 1914

Paper Art Print
$51.08
SKU: SAR-15177
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 53.3 x 40 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Padre Sebastiano, c.1904/06 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Padre Sebastiano c.1904/06

Oil Painting
$872
Canvas Print
$59.09
SKU: SAR-15178
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56.5 x 71 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Hermit (Il solitario), 1908 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Hermit (Il solitario) 1908

Oil Painting
$991
Canvas Print
$76.53
SKU: SAR-15179
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 95.9 x 96.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Edward Robinson, 1903 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Edward Robinson 1903

Oil Painting
$827
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15180
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 143.5 x 92 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Giudecca, c.1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Giudecca c.1913

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15181
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 33.2 x 53.2 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Tommies Bathing, 1918 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Tommies Bathing 1918

Paper Art Print
$49.12
SKU: SAR-15182
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 38.9 x 52.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Venetian Canal, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Venetian Canal 1913

Paper Art Print
$51.28
SKU: SAR-15183
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 40 x 53.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

In the Generalife, 1912 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

In the Generalife 1912

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15184
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 37.5 x 45.4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Boboli Garden, Florence, c.1906/07 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Boboli Garden, Florence c.1906/07

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15185
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 29.2 x 46 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Reapers Resting in a Wheat Field, 1885 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Reapers Resting in a Wheat Field 1885

Oil Painting
$570
Canvas Print
$58.40
SKU: SAR-15186
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 71 x 91.4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Bringing Down Marble from the Quarries to Carrara, 1911 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Bringing Down Marble from the Quarries to Carrara 1911

Oil Painting
$709
Canvas Print
$58.68
SKU: SAR-15187
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 71.4 x 91.8 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Alpine Pool, 1907 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Alpine Pool 1907

Oil Painting
$662
Canvas Print
$54.24
SKU: SAR-15188
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 69.9 x 96.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Figure in Hammock, Florida, 1917 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Figure in Hammock, Florida 1917

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15189
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 34.6 x 53.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Boats, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Boats 1913

Paper Art Print
$51.08
SKU: SAR-15190
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 40 x 53.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Idle Sails, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Idle Sails 1913

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15191
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 34.6 x 53.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Spanish Fountain, 1912 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Spanish Fountain 1912

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15192
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 53.3 x 35 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Camouflaged Field in France, 1918 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Camouflaged Field in France 1918

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15193
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 33.8 x 53.2 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Mrs. Henry Galbraith Ward, c.1891/94 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs. Henry Galbraith Ward c.1891/94

Oil Painting
$695
Canvas Print
$61.71
SKU: SAR-15194
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 68.6 x 56 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

View from a Window, Genoa, c.1911 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

View from a Window, Genoa c.1911

Paper Art Print
$51.18
SKU: SAR-15195
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 40.3 x 53 cm
British Museum, London, United Kingdom

La Carmencita, 1889 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

La Carmencita 1889

Oil Painting
$900
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15196
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 232 x 142 cm
Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France

Self-Portrait, 1906 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Self-Portrait 1906

Oil Painting
$713
Canvas Print
$55.35
SKU: SAR-15197
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy

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