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Mark BeardBoy in Suit: Academic Figurative Painting by Mark Beard aka. Bruce Sargeant date unknown
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About the Item
Academic style figurative painting of two men in trousers and suits with naval flags by Mark Beard aka "Bruce Sargeant"
"Boy in Suit", painted in the late 90's - early 2000's for Abercrombie and Fitch's flagship store in Milan, Italy
By Mark Beard as Bruce Sargeant (pseudonym in homage to the fashion photographer, Bruce Weber, and figurative painter, John Singer Sargeant)
83.5 x 48 inches, 88 x 53 inches with a black painted wood frame
Excellent condition, ready to hang as is (hangs with two d-rings)
Signed by the artist, upper left "Bruce Sargeant"
This vertical, figurative painting of two young men was made by Mark Beard under his fictitious artistic persona, Bruce Sargeant. Painted in a modern Academic style, the handsome athletic men are captured alongside ropes and naval flags. Both men are outfitted with basic black and brown trousers, while one stands stoically in a formal suit while the other is partially unclothed. The model facing away from the viewer exposes lean, toned muscles and both figures' statuesque grey skin tone is flushed around the extremities with a soft pink. The painting is on stretched canvas that is mounted to a back wood panel.
The painting was originally part of an expansive mural that spanned several stories at Abercrombie and Fitch's flagship store in Milan, Italy. After the murals were returned to the artist around 2019, he stretched the canvases individually to make them available for sale. There is a seam that goes along the edge of the canvas from the middle to lower left corner that shows where the artist separated the composition from the larger mural. It does not compromise the integrity of the painting as the canvas is secured to a back panel and protected with multiple layers of Liquin.
About the artist:
Mark Beard is perhaps the most literal example of an artist pulled in so many different directions that he chose to “invent” six different personae in which to channel his overflowing energy and need for expression. Each painting style is radically different from the next, so it remains entirely believable that the work could stem from six completely different people of different time periods and different schools of thought. With a background in set design, Beard has always been one who could conjure total magic with anything available.
Beard paints under the fictitious persona of Bruce Sargeant, his half American-half English uncle who painted a parade of Arcadian scenes suggesting afternoons of young men sporting in the countryside, rowing, bicycling, hunting or wrestling during the 1930's and 40's. Clean shaven, well manicured youths pose casually, indulging every opportunity to display a titillating flex of stone-like musculature. Like modern Greek statues, Beard paints these prestigious figures oftentimes in pairs of twos and threes in a lazy state of beautiful passivity. Mark Beard keeps himself fresh with challenge, undertaking ambitious commissions and committing to weekly sketch sessions with live models in his Manhattan studio. The result of this dedicated practice is a stunning array of graphite and conte crayon drawings on Arches paper.
Mark Beard, born in 1956 in Salt Lake city, now lives in New York City. His works are in museum collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton University Art Museums; among many others. We would not be the least bit surprised to see new ‘personas’ emerge in the coming years.
- Creator:Mark Beard (1956, American)
- Creation Year:date unknown
- Dimensions:Height: 88 in (223.52 cm)Width: 53 in (134.62 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Hudson, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2277923542
Mark Beard
Contemporary New York City-based artist Mark Beard has long demonstrated command in a variety of mediums — he works in oil paint, bronze, ceramics and more. Beard is known mainly for his portraits and figurative paintings, but he is prolific in figurative drawing and nude photography as well.
Beard was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1986, he began working as a set designer, and for the next decade, he created more than 20 sets in New York City, London, Frankfurt, Vienna and Cologne. As a painter and printmaker, Beard didn’t wish to confine himself to a rigid style and instead sought to explore Impressionism, Art Nouveau and other movements in a range of mediums. In order to freely move from one style to the next, Beard created several different personas, assigning a specific biography to each one.
Beard's most prominent artistic alter ego is Bruce Sargeant, whom the artist has positioned in exhibitions as an early 20th-century painter. Beard's work as Sargeant is a detailed study of the male physique. The paintings often feature sculpted athletic men engaged in physical activities like wrestling and rowing. The work is steeped in homoeroticism, and the artist’s name itself is a reference to painter John Singer Sargent — while he’s best known for his Edwardian-era portraits, John Singer Sargent also created murals and drawings of male nudes that were similarly reflective of a homoerotic sensibility.
Beard is also an accomplished landscape painter. His great-grandfather, George Beard, was a regional painter and photographer of the Rocky Mountains. Mark spent summers at his grandfather's 19th-century log cabin retreat as a child. These formative experiences are reflected in his own stunning landscape paintings.
Beard's artwork is held in many high-profile museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Today, Beard resides in the Manhattan loft that he purchased in 1994 with his partner, James Manfred. It serves as both his home and his studio. The space is filled with his oil paintings, drawings and sculptures.
On 1stDibs, find Mark Beard paintings, drawings, photography and more.
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