Portrait of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent Painting Reproductions 8 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

The Master and His Pupils, 1914 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Master and His Pupils 1914

Oil Painting
$842
Canvas Print
$59.58
SKU: SAR-15278
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56 x 71 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Fishing for Oysters at Cancale, 1878 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Fishing for Oysters at Cancale 1878

Oil Painting
$789
Canvas Print
$50.64
SKU: SAR-15279
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 41 x 61 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Portrait of Mrs Robert Harrison, 1886 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Mrs Robert Harrison 1886

Oil Painting
$987
Canvas Print
$64.84
SKU: SAR-15280
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 157.8 x 80.3 cm
Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears, 1899 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears 1899

Oil Painting
$1010
Canvas Print
$50.64
SKU: SAR-15281
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 147.6 x 96.8 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry, Carrying the Great Sword of State at the Coronation of King Edward VII, 1904 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry, ... 1904

Oil Painting
$1019
Canvas Print
$52.19
SKU: SAR-15282
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 287 x 195.6 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Two Girls in White Dresses, c.1909/11 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Two Girls in White Dresses c.1909/11

Oil Painting
$672
Canvas Print
$58.89
SKU: SAR-15283
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 70 x 54.6 cm
Private Collection

Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, 1885 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife 1885

Oil Painting
$712
Canvas Print
$54.60
SKU: SAR-15284
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 51.4 x 61.6 cm
Private Collection

Ernest-Ange Duez, c.1884/86 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Ernest-Ange Duez c.1884/86

Oil Painting
$720
Canvas Print
$62.65
SKU: SAR-15285
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 73.7 x 60.3 cm
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, USA

Major Henry Lee Higginson, 1903 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Major Henry Lee Higginson 1903

Oil Painting
$987
Canvas Print
$50.64
SKU: SAR-15302
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 246 x 153.7 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Abbott Lawrence Lowell, c.1923/24 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Abbott Lawrence Lowell c.1923/24

Oil Painting
$1006
Canvas Print
$53.44
SKU: SAR-15303
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 140.6 x 98.7 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Courtyard of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Courtyard of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni ... 1913

Oil Painting
$606
Canvas Print
$60.28
SKU: SAR-15304
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 56.2 x 71.8 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Johannes Wolff, 1897 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Johannes Wolff 1897

Oil Painting
$871
Canvas Print
$64.60
SKU: SAR-15305
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 76 x 64.3 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

In the Simplon Valley, c.1910 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

In the Simplon Valley c.1910

Oil Painting
$780
Canvas Print
$62.93
SKU: SAR-15306
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 96.8 x 116 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

The Honorable Laura Lister, 1896 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

The Honorable Laura Lister 1896

Oil Painting
$892
Canvas Print
$51.63
SKU: SAR-15307
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 169 x 115.3 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Boats, Venice, c.1908 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Boats, Venice c.1908

Paper Art Print
$48.22
SKU: SAR-15308
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 35.6 x 50.8 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Moorish Courtyard, 1913 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Moorish Courtyard 1913

Oil Painting
$848
Canvas Print
$59.99
SKU: SAR-15309
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 71 x 91.5 cm
Private Collection

Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon, 1904 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon 1904

Oil Painting
$992
Canvas Print
$51.21
SKU: SAR-15310
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Breakfast in the Loggia, 1910 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Breakfast in the Loggia 1910

Oil Painting
$734
Canvas Print
$54.42
SKU: SAR-15311
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 51.5 x 71 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

Boats at Anchor, 1917 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Boats at Anchor 1917

Paper Art Print
$48.22
SKU: SAR-15312
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA

Gourds, c.1905 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Gourds c.1905

Paper Art Print
$48.22
SKU: SAR-15313
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 35 x 50 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Stream in Val d'Aosta, c.1909 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Stream in Val d'Aosta c.1909

Oil Painting
$631
Canvas Print
$59.99
SKU: SAR-15314
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 55 x 70 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Pomegranates, Majorca, c.1908 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Pomegranates, Majorca c.1908

Oil Painting
$662
Canvas Print
$60.70
SKU: SAR-15315
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 73 x 56.5 cm
Private Collection

Portrait of Caspar Goodrich, n.d. by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Caspar Goodrich n.d.

Oil Painting
$708
Canvas Print
$55.81
SKU: SAR-15316
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: 66.3 x 48.6 cm
Private Collection

Portrait of Leroy King as a Young Boy, 1888 by Sargent | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Leroy King as a Young Boy 1888

Oil Painting
$693
Canvas Print
$62.51
SKU: SAR-15317
John Singer Sargent
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

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