Portrait of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent Painting Reproductions 9 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

Rigging, c.1905/06 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Rigging c.1905/06

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15318
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 28.7 x 46 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Bathers, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Bathers n.d.

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15319
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA

Santa Maria della Salute, 1904 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Santa Maria della Salute 1904

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15320
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 46.2 x 58.3 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Portrait of the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of the Marchioness of Cholmondeley n.d.

Oil Painting
$826
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15321
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 161 x 93 cm
Private Collection

Venice in Grey Weather, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Venice in Grey Weather n.d.

Oil Painting
$570
Canvas Print
$55.63
SKU: SAR-15322
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 50.8 x 68.6 cm
Private Collection

Mrs William Marshall Cazalet and Two of Her Children, 1900 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs William Marshall Cazalet and Two of Her Children 1900

Oil Painting
$1070
Canvas Print
$52.30
SKU: SAR-15323
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 254 x 165 cm
Private Collection

A Falucho, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

A Falucho n.d.

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15324
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 35.6 x 50.6 cm
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, USA

Unloading Plaster, c.1905 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Unloading Plaster c.1905

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15325
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 35.3 x 49.2 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Portrait of Mrs Alice Brisbane Thursby, 1898 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Mrs Alice Brisbane Thursby 1898

Oil Painting
$919
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15326
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Green Parasol, c.1910 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Green Parasol c.1910

Paper Art Print
$47.83
SKU: SAR-15327
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Women at Work, c.1910 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Women at Work c.1910

Oil Painting
$683
Canvas Print
$59.23
SKU: SAR-15328
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56 x 71 cm
Private Collection

Lady Evelyn Cavendish, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Lady Evelyn Cavendish n.d.

Oil Painting
$869
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15329
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 148 x 96.8 cm
Public Collection

The Acheson Sisters, 1902 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Acheson Sisters 1902

Oil Painting
$1290
Canvas Print
$55.77
SKU: SAR-15330
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 273.6 x 200.6 cm
Public Collection

Daisy Leiter (Margaret Hyde, 19th Countess of Suffolk), 1898 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Daisy Leiter (Margaret Hyde, 19th Countess of Suffolk) 1898

Oil Painting
$872
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15331
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Kenwood House (The Iveagh Bequest), London, United Kingdom

Oranges at Corfu, c.1909 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Oranges at Corfu c.1909

Oil Painting
$477
Canvas Print
$59.92
SKU: SAR-15332
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56 x 71 cm
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA

Mrs. Knowles and Her Children, 1902 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs. Knowles and Her Children 1902

Oil Painting
$1009
Canvas Print
$61.86
SKU: SAR-15333
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 182.8 x 151 cm
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, USA

Mrs Edward Goetz, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs Edward Goetz n.d.

Oil Painting
$855
Canvas Print
$54.11
SKU: SAR-15334
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 146 x 105.4 cm
Private Collection

Ruined Cathedral, Arras, 1918 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Ruined Cathedral, Arras 1918

Oil Painting
$769
Canvas Print
$59.23
SKU: SAR-15335
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Portrait of Lady Sassoon, 1907 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Lady Sassoon 1907

Oil Painting
$939
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15336
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 163 x 108 cm
Private Collection

Gathering Flowers at Twilight, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Gathering Flowers at Twilight n.d.

Oil Painting
$683
Canvas Print
$61.71
SKU: SAR-15337
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Dolce far Niente, c.1907 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Dolce far Niente c.1907

Oil Painting
$662
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15338
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 41.3 x 71.7 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver, c.1879/80 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the ... c.1879/80

Oil Painting
$554
Canvas Print
$62.41
SKU: SAR-15339
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 57 x 46 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Lady Warwick and her Son, 1905 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Lady Warwick and her Son 1905

Oil Painting
$1115
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15340
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA

Portrait of Mrs. Charles Beatty Alexander (nee Harriet Crocker), 1902 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Mrs. Charles Beatty Alexander (nee ... 1902

Oil Painting
$890
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: SAR-15341
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 147 x 96.5 cm
Private Collection

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