Portrait of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent Painting Reproductions 4 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.

272 Sargent Paintings

Palazzo Labia and San Geremia, Venice, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Palazzo Labia and San Geremia, Venice 1913

Oil Painting
$758
SKU: SAR-1774
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Girl Fishing, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Girl Fishing 1913

Oil Painting
$746
SKU: SAR-1775
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Sketchers, 1914 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Sketchers 1914

Oil Painting
$833
Canvas Print
$59.74
SKU: SAR-1776
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 55.9 x 71.1 cm
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA

The Artist Sketching, 1922 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Artist Sketching 1922

Oil Painting
$818
SKU: SAR-1777
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Life Study (Study of an Egyptian Girl), 1891 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Life Study (Study of an Egyptian Girl) 1891

Oil Painting
$1048
Canvas Print
$50.54
SKU: SAR-1778
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 190.5 x 61 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth 1889

Oil Painting
$993
Canvas Print
$50.54
SKU: SAR-1779
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 221 x 114.3 cm
Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler (Mrs John Jay Chapman), 1893 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler (Mrs John Jay Chapman) 1893

Oil Painting
$945
Canvas Print
$62.39
SKU: SAR-1780
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 125.4 x 102.8 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

Mrs. Hugh Hammersley, 1892 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs. Hugh Hammersley 1892

Oil Painting
$955
Canvas Print
$70.84
SKU: SAR-1781
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 205.7 x 115.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Breakfast Table, 1884 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Breakfast Table 1884

Oil Painting
$586
Canvas Print
$61.53
SKU: SAR-1782
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 54 x 45 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Mrs. Henry White, 1883 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs. Henry White 1883

Oil Painting
$1107
Canvas Print
$50.54
SKU: SAR-1783
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 225 x 143.5 cm
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

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

Street in Venice c.1880/82

Oil Painting
$754
Canvas Print
$56.55
SKU: SAR-1784
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 75 x 52.4 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Portrait of Pauline Astor, c.1898 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Pauline Astor c.1898

Oil Painting
$1556
SKU: SAR-7964
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

A Window in the Vatican, 1906 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

A Window in the Vatican 1906

Oil Painting
$580
SKU: SAR-11670
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 71 x 56 cm
Private Collection

Maud Glen Coats, Duchess of Wellington, 1906 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Maud Glen Coats, Duchess of Wellington 1906

Oil Painting
$916
SKU: SAR-13380
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 106.8 x 78.8 cm
Private Collection

Egyptians Raising Water from the Nile, c.1890/91 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Egyptians Raising Water from the Nile c.1890/91

Oil Painting
$513
Canvas Print
$63.65
SKU: SAR-15164
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 63.5 x 53.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Man with Red Drapery, a.1900 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Man with Red Drapery a.1900

Paper Art Print
$48.24
SKU: SAR-15165
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 36.5 x 53.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Venetian Passageway, c.1905 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Venetian Passageway c.1905

Paper Art Print
$48.24
SKU: SAR-15166
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 53.8 x 36.8 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Tyrolese Interior, 1915 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Tyrolese Interior 1915

Oil Painting
$725
Canvas Print
$60.16
SKU: SAR-15167
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 71.4 x 56 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Two Girls with Parasols, 1888 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Two Girls with Parasols 1888

Oil Painting
$617
Canvas Print
$64.48
SKU: SAR-15168
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 74.9 x 63.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Two Girls on a Lawn, c.1889 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Two Girls on a Lawn c.1889

Oil Painting
$518
Canvas Print
$62.39
SKU: SAR-15169
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 53.7 x 64 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Portrait of William Merritt Chase, 1902 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of William Merritt Chase 1902

Oil Painting
$786
Canvas Print
$50.54
SKU: SAR-15170
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 158.8 x 105 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, 1897 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes 1897

Oil Painting
$1007
Canvas Print
$59.33
SKU: SAR-15171
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 214 x 101 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Schreckhorn, Eismeer (Splendid Mountain), 1870 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Schreckhorn, Eismeer (Splendid Mountain) 1870

Paper Art Print
$48.24
SKU: SAR-15172
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 27.6 x 40.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Lady with the Rose (Charlotte Louise Burckhardt), 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Lady with the Rose (Charlotte Louise Burckhardt) 1882

Oil Painting
$977
Canvas Print
$66.88
SKU: SAR-15173
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 213.4 x 113.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

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