Sargent, John Singer

born Jan. 12, 1856, Florence, Italy

died April 15, 1925, London, Eng.

U.S.-British painter.

Son of wealthy American parents, he was born in Italy and grew up in Europe, not seeing the U.S. until 1876. Having studied painting in Paris, in 1879 he traveled to Madrid and Haarlem to study the works of Diego Velázquez and Frans Hals; his finest works were painted soon afterward. Best known is his portrait Madame X, which created a scandal at the 1884 Salon; critics found it eccentric and erotic, and the sitter's mother claimed it made her daughter a laughingstock. Discouraged, he moved permanently to London, though he often visited the U.S. Not until about 1887 did he achieve the acclaim he was to enjoy in the U.S. and England the rest of his life. His elegant portraits created an enduring image of high society of the Edwardian age; the best, painted with his slashing brushstrokes, capture his subjects in revealing, off-guard moments. He largely gave up portraiture in 1907 and devoted the rest of his life to murals and landscapes.

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▪ American painter

born January 12, 1856, Florence, Italy

died April 15, 1925, London, England

 Italian-born American painter whose elegant portraits provide an enduring image of Edwardian-age society. The wealthy and privileged on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean came to his studio in London to be immortalized.

      Sargent was reared abroad and first saw the United States in 1876, when he established citizenship. Serious and reserved, he had a talent for drawing, and in 1874 he went to Paris to study painting with Carolus-Duran, a fashionable society portraitist. During this time he also began to experiment with the techniques of the Impressionists (Impressionism). In 1879 Sargent traveled to Madrid to study the works of Diego Velázquez (Velázquez, Diego) and to Haarlem, The Netherlands, to see the works of Frans Hals (Hals, Frans). Some critics believe that his best work, executed in a rich, dark palette, was done in the years immediately after this trip, including a series of paintings depicting the daily labours of the Venetian working class.

      At the Salon of 1884, Sargent showed what is probably his best-known picture, Madame X, a portrait of Madame Gautreau, a famous Parisian beauty. Sargent regarded it as his masterpiece and was disagreeably surprised when it caused a scandal—critics found it eccentric and erotic. Discouraged by his Parisian failure, Sargent moved permanently to London. His work was too continental and avant-garde to appeal immediately to English taste: The Misses Vickers (1884) was voted worst picture of the year by the Pall Mall Gazette in 1886. It was not until 1887 that this critical reception changed. That year his Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885–86), a study of two little girls lighting Japanese lanterns, captured the hearts of the British public, and he began to experience the phenomenal acclaim in England and the United States that he would enjoy for the rest of his life.

      Sargent's broad, slashing brushstrokes and brilliant palette evoke a sense of the accidental and of capturing a particular moment. He was surprisingly unrepetitive in his portraiture, responding to each sitter differently, and was masterfully able to manipulate props and painterly effects to suggest the class and sometimes the occupation of his subjects. His best portraits capture his sitters in a revealing, off-guard moment. Fashionable clients flocked to his Chelsea studio and paid, on average, 1,000 guineas, or $5,000, for a full-length portrait.

      After 1910 Sargent gave up portraiture and devoted the rest of his life to painting murals and Alpine and Italian landscapes in watercolour. With stenographic brilliance Sargent pursued transparency and fluidity beyond the experiments of J.M.W. Turner (Turner, J.M.W.) and Winslow Homer (Homer, Winslow), sometimes creating works that were prophetically or accidentally expressionistic, as in Mountain Fire (1895).

      From 1890 to 1910 he worked on a commission for the Boston Public Library to execute murals on the history of the Jewish and Christian religions. He also executed murals in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Additional Reading

Evan Charteris, John Sargent (1927, reprinted 1972); Charles Merrill Mount, John Singer Sargent, 3rd ed. (1969); and Stanley Olson, John Singer Sargent, His Portrait (1986, reissued 1989), are primarily biographies. Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors (1970); Carter Ratcliff, John Singer Sargent (1982, reissued 1990?); Patricia Hills et al., John Singer Sargent (1986); and Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormand (eds.), John Singer Sargent (1998), all focus on his art.

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