SARGENT, John Singer (Florence, 1856 – London, 1925)
Sargent was born in Florence, on 12 January 1856. His father, who had been a successful North-American physician, and his mother, the daughter of a prosperous merchant, had taken up a permanent, although peripatetic, residence in Europe. In 1868, Sargent began receiving lessons in painting from Carl Welsch, a German-American landscape painter; in 1873 he enrolled at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence. In 1874, his family moved to Paris, and Sargent enrolling in the atelier of Carolus-Duran. He also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and with Léon Bonnat at the Petit École. His circle of friends included Paul Helleu, J. Alden Weir, James Carroll Beckwith, and Will H. Low. He met Claude Monet for the first time around 1876; later he would paint Monet on a number of occasions. Sargent was forced to visit the United States in order to retain his American citizenship.
In 1878, The Oyster Gatherers of Cancale was exhibited at the Paris Salon; the smaller version of the subject, Fishing for Oysters at Cancale, was shown in New York at the first exhibition of the Society of American Artists.
In 1879–1880 the artist travelled to Spain, where he copied works by Velázquez, and to North Africa; toured the Netherlands, copied works by Frans Hals. In the early 1880s, he met James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde. In 1882 Sargent exhibited El Jaleo at the Paris Salon, exhibited at the Royal Academy in London for the first time. He travelled to Venice in the late summer of 1882. The scandalous Madame X was exhibited at the Salon in 1884. In 1885–1886, Sargent stayed at the English artists and writers colony, Broadway, Worcestershire; his friends there included Edwin Austin Abbey and Francis Davis Millet. Sargent moved into Whistler’s old studio on Tite Street, London, in 1886.
In 1890 Sargent received a commission for the Boston Public Library murals which were installed by 1916. He travelled through Egypt, Turkey and Greece from 1890–1891. Sargent was elected associate of the National Academy of Design, New York, in 1891, academician in 1897; associate to the Royal Academy in 1894, academician 1897. He exhibited the Wyndham Sisters at the Royal Academy in 1900. The artist declined a commission to paint the Coronation portrait of Edward VII; offered a knighthood in 1907, but he was not able to accept because of his American citizenship.
From 1903–1912 Sargent travelled widely throughout Spain, Italy, and France, and he visited Syria and Palestine in 1905. He was in the Austrian Tyrol when war broke out in August 1914 and was unable to return to London until December. In 1916 he returned to the United States to supervise the installation of his murals; travelled west to Glacier National Park, Montana, and to British Columbia. The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased Madame X. Sargent returned to England in 1918 and then travelled to the front lines in France as an official war artist. He refused presidency of the Royal Academy. Sargent returned to Boston in 1919 to work on his commission for decorations for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was in London from 1920–1924 but often returned to Boston to complete his work on the murals for the museum and for the Widener Library, Harvard. A major exhibition of Sargent’s work was held in 1924 at the Grand Central Art Galleries, New York. He died in his sleep on 15 April 1925 in London and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Woking. A memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 24 April.
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