Mark Beard
[Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938)] Michael Hunting
n.d.

Name: [Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938)] Michael Hunting
Brand: Mark Beard
Price: 3100 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Oil on canvas Signed in red, u.r. 14 x 11 inches, canvas size 14.5 x 11.5 inches in distressed gold leaf frame This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Bruce Sargeant is a mythic figure in the modern art movement. He embodies a world that is in many ways lost to us; he exudes a sensibility that fills every corner of his canvas; the heaviness of his figures hides an elusive levity. . . In the stock-still gaze of his athletes, in the subdued intensity of his still lifes, in the reflective sheen on his three-dimensional work, it is clear that he goes beyond reality. In his attempt to prove the simplicity of imitative simulacra, he achieves a sort of non-realism. If you look closely in the eyes of his subjects, they seem beyond the world of the viewer. They simply cannot exist—nor can the artist who created them. Sargeant is at the height of his powers when he achieves this superficiality—in the pure sense of what lies on surfaces—an analogue for the sublime.” – Gary L. Haller, December 2004 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.

Creator:

Mark Beard (1956, American)

Creation Year:

n.d.

Dimensions:

Height: 14 in (35.56 cm)Width: 11 in (27.94 cm)

Medium:

Canvas,Oil

Movement & Style:

Realist

Period:

21st Century

Condition:

Gallery Location:

New York, NY

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU93232883381

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Shop All Mark Beard

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.