American, 1856 - 1925
Born to expatriate parents, John S. Sargent spent his peripatetic youth traveling between European spas and resorts. His informal education consisted mainly of lessons from his father, while his mother encouraged him to sketch and paint. Although he may have received art instruction from Charles F. Welsch at age 13, his first significant contact with professional artists came in the winter of 1873-4 when he and fellow students Frank Fowler and Walter Launt Palmer benefited from the advice of Edwin White in Florence.
In 1874, Sargent's family moved to Paris to enable him to study painting. He secured a place in the atelier of Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran, where he remained four and a half years and became Carolus-Duran's prize pupil. In the fall of 1874, he also gained entrance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, studying with L‚on Bonnat and Henri Fr‚d‚ric Adolphe Yvon. During this period, Sargent became friendly with a number of American artists such as J. Carroll Beckwith with whom he shared a Parisian studio for three years. As a student, he traveled often, making his first trip to the United States in 1876 and visiting Spain (where he was influenced by Vel zquez) and North Africa in 1879 and 1880. He met James A. McN. Whistler when he spent the winter of 1880-1 in Venice.
Sargent began his promising career as a portraitist and plein-air landscapist in Paris, but after spending two summers in England, he opened a London studio in 1886. He became part of the small artists colony at Broadway, England, with fellow expatriates Edwin A. Abbey and Frank Millet. A successful portrait-painting tour in the United States in 1887-8 significantly advanced his reputation, and in 1890, he received an enormous mural commission for the Boston Public Library, a project which occupied him for most of his remaining life. The mural cycle, a history of religion, prompted research tours in Egypt (1891), Spain (1895), Italy (1897 and 1901-2), and the Holy Land (1905-6). During the first half of the 1890s, Sargent neglected portraiture to work almost exclusively on the murals. His failure to send works to National Academy Annuals caused him to be dropped from the list of Associates in 1894. He was reinstated, however, when he explained his reasons in a letter to J.C. Nicoll (NAD Archives).
Sargent's later years were divided between teaching at the Royal Academy, travel, mural work, and a return to subject pictures and the watercolor medium. As of about 1907, he foreswore Oil portraiture by and large, although he did execute a number of charcoal likenesses. One of his last projects was a series of sketches and finished works resulting from time spent observing the Allied forces in World War I.
In 1874, Sargent's family moved to Paris to enable him to study painting. He secured a place in the atelier of Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran, where he remained four and a half years and became Carolus-Duran's prize pupil. In the fall of 1874, he also gained entrance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, studying with L‚on Bonnat and Henri Fr‚d‚ric Adolphe Yvon. During this period, Sargent became friendly with a number of American artists such as J. Carroll Beckwith with whom he shared a Parisian studio for three years. As a student, he traveled often, making his first trip to the United States in 1876 and visiting Spain (where he was influenced by Vel zquez) and North Africa in 1879 and 1880. He met James A. McN. Whistler when he spent the winter of 1880-1 in Venice.
Sargent began his promising career as a portraitist and plein-air landscapist in Paris, but after spending two summers in England, he opened a London studio in 1886. He became part of the small artists colony at Broadway, England, with fellow expatriates Edwin A. Abbey and Frank Millet. A successful portrait-painting tour in the United States in 1887-8 significantly advanced his reputation, and in 1890, he received an enormous mural commission for the Boston Public Library, a project which occupied him for most of his remaining life. The mural cycle, a history of religion, prompted research tours in Egypt (1891), Spain (1895), Italy (1897 and 1901-2), and the Holy Land (1905-6). During the first half of the 1890s, Sargent neglected portraiture to work almost exclusively on the murals. His failure to send works to National Academy Annuals caused him to be dropped from the list of Associates in 1894. He was reinstated, however, when he explained his reasons in a letter to J.C. Nicoll (NAD Archives).
Sargent's later years were divided between teaching at the Royal Academy, travel, mural work, and a return to subject pictures and the watercolor medium. As of about 1907, he foreswore Oil portraiture by and large, although he did execute a number of charcoal likenesses. One of his last projects was a series of sketches and finished works resulting from time spent observing the Allied forces in World War I.
