Portrait of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent Painting Reproductions 6 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

Yoho Falls, 1916 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Yoho Falls 1916

Oil Painting
$686
Canvas Print
$64.94
SKU: SAR-15200
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 94 x 113 cm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA

Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast, c.1882/83 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast c.1882/83

Oil Painting
$521
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15201
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 32 x 41 cm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA

Muddy Alligators, 1917 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Muddy Alligators 1917

Paper Art Print
$48.58
SKU: SAR-15203
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 34.3 x 52.7 cm
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA

Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field 1882

Oil Painting
$940
Canvas Print
$54.69
SKU: SAR-15204
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 111.7 x 82.5 cm
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, USA

Mrs. Charles Gifford Dyer, 1880 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs. Charles Gifford Dyer 1880

Oil Painting
$533
Canvas Print
$52.17
SKU: SAR-15205
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 63 x 43.8 cm
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA

Portrait of Mrs. Daniel Sargent Curtis, 1882 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Mrs. Daniel Sargent Curtis 1882

Oil Painting
$686
Canvas Print
$57.51
SKU: SAR-15206
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 71 x 53.3 cm
Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA

Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis, 1898 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis 1898

Oil Painting
$923
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15236
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 249 x 134 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

Dorothy, 1900 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Dorothy 1900

Oil Painting
$619
Canvas Print
$62.69
SKU: SAR-15237
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 61.3 x 50.2 cm
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, USA

Madame Paul Poirson, 1885 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Madame Paul Poirson 1885

Oil Painting
$898
Canvas Print
$53.20
SKU: SAR-15238
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 152.4 x 86.4 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, USA

Judith Gautier, c.1885 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Judith Gautier c.1885

Oil Painting
$625
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15239
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 99 x 62.2 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, USA

Caroline de Bassano, Marquise d'Espeuilles, 1884 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Caroline de Bassano, Marquise d'Espeuilles 1884

Oil Painting
$946
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15240
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 159.7 x 105 cm
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California, USA

Trout Stream in the Tyrol, 1914 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Trout Stream in the Tyrol 1914

Oil Painting
$638
Canvas Print
$60.03
SKU: SAR-15241
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56 x 71 cm
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California, USA

Portrait of Mrs. J. William White, 1903 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Mrs. J. William White 1903

Oil Painting
$798
Canvas Print
$62.83
SKU: SAR-15242
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 76.4 x 63.7 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA

Portrait of Lady Eden, 1906 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Lady Eden 1906

Oil Painting
$888
Canvas Print
$60.31
SKU: SAR-15243
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 110.6 x 86.5 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA

Landscape with Women in Foreground, c.1883 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Landscape with Women in Foreground c.1883

Oil Painting
$608
Canvas Print
$61.57
SKU: SAR-15244
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 63.5 x 77.5 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA

Leon Delafosse, c.1895/98 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Leon Delafosse c.1895/98

Oil Painting
$869
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15245
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 101 x 59.4 cm
Seattle Art Museum, Washington, USA

Yachts at Anchor, Palma de Majorca, 1912 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Yachts at Anchor, Palma de Majorca 1912

Paper Art Print
$48.58
SKU: SAR-15246
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 30.5 x 40.6 cm
Seattle Art Museum, Washington, USA

Madame Escudier, c.1883 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Madame Escudier c.1883

Oil Painting
$730
Canvas Print
$61.99
SKU: SAR-15247
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 73 x 59.7 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Resting, c.1875 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Resting c.1875

Oil Painting
$493
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15248
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 21.6 x 26.8 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Mademoiselle Jourdain, 1889 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mademoiselle Jourdain 1889

Oil Painting
$644
Canvas Print
$57.92
SKU: SAR-15249
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 60 x 45 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot, 1888 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot 1888

Oil Painting
$649
Canvas Print
$70.83
SKU: SAR-15250
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 68.6 x 64 cm
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, USA

Still Life with Daffodils, c.1885 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Still Life with Daffodils c.1885

Oil Painting
$445
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: SAR-15251
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 82.2 x 46.4 cm
Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut, USA

Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley, 1903 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley 1903

Oil Painting
$860
Canvas Print
$63.39
SKU: SAR-15252
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 91.4 x 77.5 cm
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, USA

The Olive Grove, c.1910 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Olive Grove c.1910

Oil Painting
$581
Canvas Print
$58.63
SKU: SAR-15253
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56 x 73 cm
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, USA

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