John Singer Sargent Art
American, 1856-1925
The most sought-after society portraitist of his time — as well as a highly accomplished painter of landscapes and genre scenes — John Singer Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, to well-to-do American parents. The French-trained Sargent depicted his sitters with a bravura brushstroke and a degree of originality that were highly progressive at the time. As a result, he enjoyed critical notice and important patronage, but also weathered some controversy.
Though Sargent spent most of his life abroad, his American ties brought him numerous portrait commissions as well as important commissions for the mural programs at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Public Library.
Sargent's works, whether in oil, watercolor, or charcoal, are marked with naturalness and a distinct sense of immediacy due to his remarkable technical facility as an artist. Whether monumental portraits or casual outdoor scenes, his works possess a freshness and fluidity seldom matched in any era.
Sargent spent much of his free time painting and sketching outdoors, and his landscapes, architectural, and subject pictures — influenced by his friendship with Claude Monet and frequently executed in watercolor — depict the various locations he visited, including Italy, rural England, Giverny, the Mediterranean, northern Africa, and the Alps. The artist devoted a large portion of his late career to his mural projects, and also served as a war artist during World War I.
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Artist: John Singer Sargent
"Study off Newport, Rhode Island" John Singer Sargent Drawing, Impressionism
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
John Singer Sargent
Study off Newport, Rhode Island, 1876
Signed in pencil "JS265A" lower left
Pencil on paper
5 x 10 inches
Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, 1959
Mr. William H. Bender Jr
Sotheby's New York, September 19, 1987
Private Collection 1987-2000
Mark Borghi Fine Art Inc., circa 2002
Private Collection (acquired from the above), New York
Recognized as the leading portraitist in England and the United States at the turn of the century, John Singer Sargent was acclaimed for his elegant and very stylish depictions of high society. Known for his technical precocity, he shunned traditional academic precepts in favor of a modern approach towards technique, color and form, thereby making his own special contribution to the history of grand manner portraiture.
A true cosmopolite, he was also a painter of plein air landscapes and genre scenes, drawing his subjects from such diverse locales as England, France, Italy and Switzerland. In so doing, Sargent also played a vital role in the history of British and American Impressionism.
Sargent was born in Florence in 1856. He was the first child of Dr. Fitzwilliam Sargent, a surgeon from an old New England family, and Mary Newbold Singer, the daughter of a Philadelphia merchant. His parents were among the many prosperous Americans who adopted an expatriate lifestyle during the later nineteenth century. Indeed, Sargent's family traveled constantly throughout the Continent and in England, a mode of living that enriched Sargent both culturally and socially. He ultimately became fluent in French, Italian and German, in addition to English.
Having developed an interest in drawing as a boy, Sargent received his earliest formal instruction in Rome in 1869, where he was taught by the German-American landscape painter Carl Welsch. Following this, he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence during 1873-74.
In the spring of 1874, Sargent's family moved to Paris, enabling him to continue his training there. He soon entered the studio of Charles-Emile-Auguste Carolus-Duran. In contrast to most French academic painters, Carolus-Duran taught his students to paint directly on the canvas, capturing the essence of his subject through relaxed brushwork, a tonal palette and strong chiaroscuro. Although Sargent also spent four years studying drawing under Léon Bonnat at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, it was Carolus-Duran's approach that would form the aesthetic basis of his style.
Upon his teacher's advice, Sargent also traveled to Spain and Holland to study the work of old master painters such as Diego Velázquez and Frans Hals, both of whom also employed deft, fluid techniques.
In 1876, Sargent made his first visit to the United States, claiming his American citizenship and visiting the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. One year later, he spent the summer in Cancale, in France's Brittany region, where he painted outdoors, applying Carolus-Duran's strategies to portrayals of fishing folk on sunlit beaches. His reputation in Paris was established in 1878 when his Oyster Gatherers of Cancale (1878; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) won an Honorable Mention at that year's Salon.
During the early 1880s, Sargent began making painting trips abroad, working in Venice in 1880 and 1882, where he painted street scenes and interiors notable for their brilliant play of light and shadow. He also embarked on what would be a lucrative career as a portraitist, producing such well known works as The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
His early commissions also included an image of Madame Pierre Gautreau. A renowned beauty and member of Parisian society, Madame Gautreau was known for her bold, unorthodox approach towards fashion. In her portrait, entitled "Madame X" (1884; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Sargent effectively captured her distinctive aura. However, his daring realism, coupled with fact that he portrayed a diamond shoulder strap falling off one of her shoulders, caused such an uproar that his career in France was seriously compromised.
As a result of the controversy surrounding "Madame X,"Sargent left Paris in 1886, settling permanently in London. He subsequently flourished in the English capital, becoming the leading portrait painter to the upper classes. Those who shared Sargent's sense of refinement and sophistication, as well as his international viewpoint, were especially drawn to his fashionable French style.
In addition to patronage from such prominent British families as the Wertheimers and the Marlboroughs, Sargent received an equal number of American commissions, many of them secured by artists and architects he had met during his student days in Paris, among them painters J. Carroll Beckwith and Julian Alden Weir and architect Stanford White. On a painting tour to America during 1887-1888, he portrayed members of notable families from Boston and New York, including Mrs. Jacob Wendell and Elizabeth Allen...
Category
1870s Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Paper, Pencil, Graphite
Loch Moidart, Inverness-shire (3), 1896
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
Renowned American impressionist painter John Singer Sargent paints a view overlooking water with the rocky shoreline in the fore in his work entitled, “Loch Moidart, Inverness-Shire ...
Category
Late 19th Century Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Paper, Pencil, Watercolor
How They Met Themselves By John Singer Sargent
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New Orleans, LA
John Singer Sargent
1856-1925 American
How They Met Themselves
Bronze
John Singer Sargent was among the most successful artists of his era. By the late 19th century, he was the m...
Category
Early 20th Century Post-Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Bronze
Figure Bending Over
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
Image dimensions: 5 ½ x 3 ½ inches
Framed dimensions: 12 ⅛ x 10 ⅜ inches
Inscribed at lower left: JS 220
Our drawing is also referred to as Young Boy Adjusting His Sandal, and is illustrated in the catalogue for Sargent's 1928 exhibition of drawings at Grand Central Art Galleries in New York. It is an example of an early study from life executed c. 1874-8.*
Sargent drew continuously from an early age and had benefited from the emphasis on drawing at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence where he entered the life class in 1870. He arrived in Paris on May 16th, 1874, with a large portfolio of drawings...
Category
1870s American Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Paper, Pencil
Garland Studies I
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
Image dimensions: 7 ¼ x 10 ½ inches
Framed dimensions: 16 ½ x 20 inches
To produce his murals, Sargent painted monumental canvases in his studios in London and Boston, adhering them...
Category
1920s American Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Paper, Pencil
Studies for Medusa
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
Image size: 16 x 20 ½ inches
This is a study for the body of Medusa in Perseus on Pegasus Slaying Medusa, 1922-25, the mural panel installed on the ceiling side aisle of the Hunting...
Category
1920s American Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Paper, Charcoal, Graphite
Study for Apollo and the Muses
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
Image dimensions: 24 x 18 inches
Framed dimensions: 34 x 28 inches
This is a figure and head study for the extreme right figure depicted in Apollo and the Muses, one of the magnific...
Category
1920s American Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Charcoal, Paper
Figure Study For 'Science'
By John Singer Sargent
Located in New York, NY
Image dimensions: 24 ½ x 18 ¾ inches
Framed dimensions: 34 x 28 inches
This charcoal drawing is a preliminary study for the figure of Science, the subject that comprises the far ri...
Category
1920s American Impressionist John Singer Sargent Art
Materials
Paper, Charcoal, Graphite
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John Singer Sargent art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic John Singer Sargent art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Singer Sargent in paper, pencil, charcoal and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large John Singer Sargent art, so small editions measuring 9 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Reynolds Beal, Robert Hallowell, and Marjorie May Blake. John Singer Sargent art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $20,000 and tops out at $95,000, while the average work can sell for $53,750.
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Questions About John Singer Sargent Art
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022John Singer Sargent painted a number of notable people during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of his most famous subjects include the writer Robert Louis Stevenson and U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. You'll find a range of John Singer Sargent art on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertFebruary 27, 2024You can see John Singer Sargent paintings at a number of museums. The largest collection of the American artist's work is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Other institutions that have Sargent's work in their collections include the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston; the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas; and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. On 1stDibs, shop an assortment of John Singer Sargent art.