John Singer Sargent facts for kids

John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
	Self-Portrait, 1906, oil on canvas,; Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Born	January 12, 1856; Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Died	April 14, 1925 (aged 69); London, England
Nationality	American (USA)

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His works documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter. From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality.

His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. Art historians generally ignored the society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century.

In 1922 Sargent co-founded New York City's Grand Central Art Galleries together with Edmund Greacen, Walter Leighton Clark, and others. Sargent actively participated in the Grand Central Art Galleries and their academy, the Grand Central School of Art, until his death in 1925. The Galleries held a major retrospective exhibit of Sargent's work in 1924. He then returned to England, where he died on April 14, 1925 of heart disease. Sargent is interred in Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey.

Gourds, 1906–10, watercolor, Brooklyn Museum

Memorial exhibitions of Sargent's work were held in Boston in 1925, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Royal Academy and Tate Gallery in London in 1926. The Grand Central Art Galleries also organized a posthumous exhibition in 1928 of previously unseen sketches and drawings from throughout his career.

The Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife was sold in 2004 for US$8.8 million and is located at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art at Bentonville, Arkansas.

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.

Images for kids

Fanny Watts, Sargent's childhood friend. The first painting at Paris Salon, 1877, Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
An Out-of-Doors Study, 1889, depicting Paul César Helleu sketching with his wife Alice Guérin. The Brooklyn Museum, New York
El Jaleo (Spanish Dancer), c. 1879–82, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
John Singer Sargent in his studio with Portrait of Madame X, c. 1885
Portrait of Madame X 1884
Mrs Henry White, 1883, Corcoran Gallery of Art
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1893, National Gallery of Scotland
Morning Walk, 1888, private collection
Sargent emphasized Almina Wertheimer's exotic beauty in 1908 by dressing her en turquerie
Gondoliers' Siesta, c. 1904, watercolor
Muddy Alligators, 1917, watercolor
Theodore Roosevelt, 1903. Sargent had Roosevelt hold his pose when he turned around with impatience to address the artist while they were walking around the White House surveying possible locations for the portrait
Sargent's grave in Brookwood Cemetery
Madame X (Virginie Gautreau) A study done while Sargent was thinking about the strap
His favourite model: Rosina Ferrara
Arsène Vigeant, 1885, Musées de Metz
Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, 1885, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Mrs. Cecil Wade, 1886 The Nelson-Atkins Museum
Elizabeth Allen Marquand, 1887, Princeton University Art Museum
Edwin Booth, 1890, Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Mrs. Hugh Hammersley, 1892
Frederick Law Olmsted, 1895
Mrs. Carl Meyer and her Children, 1896
Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears (Sarah Choate Sears), 1899
The Wyndham Sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tennant, 1899
Lady Helen Vincent in Venice, 1904
Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel, 1903
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, 1914, Royal Geographical Society
Cora, Countess of Strafford, 1908
John D. Rockefeller, 1917
A Dinner Table at Night, 1884, De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
Street in Venice, c. 1882, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
The Misses Vickers, 1884, Weston Park Museum
Dans Les Oliviers, 1878
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885–86, the Tate, London
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889
The Sitwell Family, 1900
The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy, 1907
Bedouins, c. 1905–06, watercolor, Brooklyn Museum of Art
Villa di Marlia, Lucca, 1910, watercolor, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Artist in the Simplon, c. 1909, watercolor, Fogg Museum of Art
On the Deck of the Yacht Constellation, 1924, watercolor, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts
Karer See, 1914, watercolor
Simplon Pass- The Tease, 1911, transparent watercolor, opaque watercolor and wax over graphite pencil on paper
The Garden Wall, 1910, watercolor