John Singer Sargent 1856-1925

Described by the novelist Henry James as an artist with "high talent," John Singer Sargent was renowned for the freshness of his vision and his amazing technical prowess, as well as for his rich and varied oeuvre (Leon Edel, ed., The Letters of Henry James Letters, vol. III: 1883–1895 [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1980], p. 32). The foremost international portraitist of the Edwardian era, Sargent painted vivacious likenesses of fashionable men and women in Paris, London, and Boston, capturing the individuality and aristocratic bearing of his subjects by means of a direct, realist style characterized by soft, buttery brushwork. A sophisticated cosmopolite who embraced a peripatetic lifestyle until the advent of World War I, Sargent was also a devoted landscape painter, applying his brush to scenery he encountered during his seasonal excursions to the Continent, North Africa, the Near East, and parts of North America. Indeed, after giving up his lucrative portrait practice in 1907, Sargent devoted most of his time to landscape work, developing a vibrant plein-air style that was uniquely his own.