John Singer Sargent

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Self Portrait, 1906, oil on canvas, 70 x 53 cm, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was a renowned turn-of-the century portrait painter, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist.

In addition to painting two United States presidents - Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson - Sargent was well known for painting the aristocracy of Europe, the new and emerging tycoons of big business such as Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, and affluent ladies of the Edwardian-era. However, his oevre was not just confined to the upper echelons of society; he also painted gypsies, tramps, and street children; he painted near the front lines during World War I; he painted the artists of his time, poets, dancers, musicians, and the writers, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Henry James. Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife [1]

His prodigious career has become a testament to a bygone era - a slower and gentler time that was soon to be consumed by the tumultuous changes of the 20th century.

Biography

Madame X, 1884, oil on canvas, 234.95 x 109.86 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan.

Early life and influences

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence, Italy in 1856 to American parents but lived most of his life in Great Britain. Like many artists in pursuit of their craft, Sargent traveled extensively. Additionally, he would spend the latter part of his life visiting the United States and painting his epic mural for the Boston Public Library.

In his youth he was educated in Italy, France and Germany, and finally moving to Paris in 1874, he studied under Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran whose influence would be pivotal during his early years. In 1879 he traveled to Madrid, Spain to study the works of Diego Velázquez, and to The Netherlands, to view the works of Frans Hals. He lived a total of ten years in Paris until scandal broke out over his controversial painting, Madame X.

Critics have compared Sargent to Velázquez, who he was a great admirer of and whose painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882, is said to emulate Velázquez' Las Meninas.[2]

Madame X and controversy

Sargent received positive critical notice in the early 1880s, for his portraits; mostly full-length portrayals of fashionably elite women, including: Madame Edouard Pailleron in 1880, Madame Ramón Subercaseaux in 1881, and Lady with the Rose, 1882. [3]

Frederick Law Olmsted, 1895, oil on canvas, 91 x 61 1/4 in.

However, Sargent's Portrait of Madame X ignited controversy after its unveling at the Paris Salon in 1884. At the time it aroused such a negative reaction that it prompted Sargent to move to London.

Madame Gautreau - Madame X - a well known Parisian socialite who commissioned Sargent to paint her portrait, refused it after the ensuing fire storm. (The original portrait of Madame X was painted with the strap off the shoulder; subsequently, Sargent re-painted it with the strap returned to its upright position on the shoulder.)

Eventually the painting was sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and today it is considered one of Sargent's best works. It was also one of the artist's favorite.

Other Portraits

Sargent's best portraits were said to have revealed the individuality and personality of the sitter. Thomas Craven in A Treasury of Art Masterpieces (p. 470) says, "His rightness in proportions was microscopically unerring - he never missed a dimension, or varied a hairsbreadth from the exact size and just relationships of features; he was a dead shot at likenesses."

His best portrait work is considered to be the series of portaits that he was commissioned to paint for the family of wealthy art dealer Asher Wertheimer, the largest commission from a single patron (1898-1902). In this series Sargent captures family members, young and old in natural and unaffected poses. The portrait Almina, Daughter of Asher Wertheimer (1908), shows Singer's love for the exotic; in it the daughter is wearing a Persian costume, a pearl encrusted turban, and is strumming an Indian sarod. Wertheimer bequeathed most of the paintings to the National Gallery in London.[4]

A turning point in Sargent's career came after his move to London and a subsequent exhibition with the Royal Academy in 1887. Britains fell in love with his painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, which shows two young girls lighting lanterns in an English garden bathed in a lovely natural light. The work which reflects both impressionistic influence and Japanese technique was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London.

In 1894 Sargent was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and was made a full member three years later. In the 1890s he averaged fourteen portrait commissions per year, among them the striking yet feminine Lady Agnew of Lochnaw(1892) Its exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1898 secured Sargent's reputation as one of the finest portrait artists of the era.

In 1925, soon before he died, Sargent painted his last oil portrait, a canvas of Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston. The painting was purchased in 1936 by the Currier Museum of Art, where it is currently on display.

Landscapes, murals and other work

El Jaleo, 1880, oil on canvas, 240 x 348 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

After 1910 Sargent abandoned portrait painting and focused on landscapes and murals; he also took up sculpting.

However, as a concession to the demand for portraits by his wealthy patrons, 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.[5]

Mr. and Mrs. I.N. Phelps-Stokes, 1897, oil on canvas, 214 x 101 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan.

His murals are displayed at the Boston Public Library.[6] For this commission Sargent made numerous visits to the United States in the last decade of his life including a stay of two full years from 1915-1917. The murals show a series of oils with the theme The Triumph of Religion. They were attached to the walls of the library by means of marouflage. Frieze of Prophets has been the most sought-after reproduction from the mural cycle and has been displayed in various renditions on church bulletins, book illustrations, ecclesiastical stained glass, and wall decorations.

Although Sargent is usually not thought of as an Impressionist painter, he sometimes used impressionistic techniques to great effect. His Claude Monet Painting at the Edge of a Wood is a rendering of his good friend Monet completed in his own version of the impressionist style.

It is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting for his own personal pleasure. Using both mediums of watercolor and oil, he portrayed his friends and family dressed in Oriental costume, relaxing in brightly lit landscapes that allowed for more experimental treatment than did his commissions (see The Chess Game, 1906).

Friendships

Among the artists with whom Sargent associated were Dennis Miller Bunker, Edwin Austin Abbey (who also worked on the Boston Public Library murals), Francis David Millet, and Claude Monet, whom Sargent painted. Sargent developed a life-long friendship with fellow painter Paul César Helleu, whom he met in Paris in 1878 when Sargent was 22 and Helleu was 18. Sargent painted both Helleu and his wife Alice on several occasions; the most memorable one being the impressionistic Paul Helleu Sketching with his Wife, done in 1889. His supporters included Henry James, and Isabella Stewart Gardner (who commissioned and purchased works from Sargent, and sought his advice on other acquisitions),[7] and Edward VII, whose recommendation for knighthood the artist declined.[8]

Theodore Roosevelt, 1903;

Legacy

In 1909 he exhibited eighty-six watercolours in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum.

In a time when the art world focused, in turn, on Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism, Sargent practiced his own form of Realism.

His critics referred to him as a relic of the Gilded Age and out of step with the artistic sentiments of post-World War I Europe. Foremost of Sargent's detractors was the influential English art critic Roger Fry, of the Bloomsbury Group, who at the 1926 Sargent retrospective in London dismissed Sargent's work as lacking aesthetic quality.[9]

Despite a long period of critical disfavor, Sargent's popularity has increased steadily since the 1960s, and his works have been the subject of recent large-scale exhibitions in major museums, including a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1986, and a 1999 "blockbuster" traveling show that exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art Washington, and the National Gallery, London.

John Singer Sargent died on April 15, 1925 and is interred in Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey, England.[10]

Posthumous sales

Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife sold in 2004 for $8.8 million to Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn to be installed at his newest casino, Wynn Las Vegas.

In December 2004, Group with Parasols (A Siesta) (1905) sold for $US 23.5 million, nearly double the Sotheby's estimate of $12 million. The previous highest price for a Sargent painting was $US 11 million.[11]

Selected works

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Notes

  1. ↑ John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery, "Robert Lewis Stevenson and his Wife"
  2. ↑ Ormond, page 27, 1998.
  3. ↑ Ormond, Richard: "Sargent's Art," John Singer Sargent, page 25-7. Tate Gallery, 1998.
  4. ↑ Ormond, page 148, 1998.
  5. ↑ John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery, "Royal Society of Portrait Painters"
  6. ↑ The Sargent Murals at the Boston Public Library
  7. ↑ Kilmurray, Elaine: "Traveling Companions," Sargent Abroad, page 57-8. Abbeville Press, 1997.
  8. ↑ Kilmurray: "Chronology of Travels," page 240, 1997.
  9. ↑ 'Wonderful indeed, but most wonderful that this wonderful performance should ever have been confused with that of an artist.' Prettejohn, page 73, 1998.
  10. ↑ John Singer Sargent. Necropolis Notables. The Brookwood Cemetery Society. Retrieved 2007-02-23.
  11. ↑ The Age, 3 December, 2004

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Fairbrother, Trevor J. 2001. John Singer Sargent: The Sensualist ISBN 0-300-08744-6
  • Fairbrother, Trevor J. 1994. John Singer Sargent. New York: Abrams. ISBN 0810938332
  • Adelson, Warren. 1997. Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0789203847
  • Promey, Sally M. 1999. Painting Religion in Public: John Singer Sargent's Triumph of Religion at the Boston Public Library. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691015651
  • Sargent, John Singer, Elaine Kilmurray, and Richard Ormond. 1998. John Singer Sargent. London: Tate Gallery Pub. ISBN 1854372459
  • Prettejohn, Elizabeth. 1999. Interpreting Sargent. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. ISBN 1556707282
  • Rewald, John: The John Hay Whitney Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington (1983). ISBN 0-89468-066-8
  • Gallati, Barbara Dayer, Erica E. Hirshler, Richard Ormond, and John Singer Sargent. 2004. Great Expectations: John Singer Sargent Painting Children. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Museum in association with Bulfinch Press. ISBN 0821261703

External links

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