If we were to make up a list of “Muddy Colors’s Favorite Artists” I think it would be safe to say John Singer Sargent is in the top 5. He’s certainly a frequent article topic and referenced quite a bit on this blog over the years. If you want some background, I did one of my Turning Points articles on him and Robert Hunt did a great one called “So What’s So Great About John Singer Sargent” way back in 2021. There was also an exhibit at the Morgan Library in 2019 that was just about Sargent’s charcoal portraits later in his career.
Sargent looms so large as an icon in the minds of illustrators — especially portrait and character illustrators — that it’s always a bit of a surprise to me when I remember that most non-artist public doesn’t know who Sargent is. He’s never been a household name like Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, DaVinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, etc. He’s not really even taught in depth in Art History classes (unless it’s specifically an Illustration History class). So it was really nice to see the Met in NYC give Sargent the star treatment this summer in their Sargent and Paris exhibit. Not only was this the summer blockbuster exhibit spot for the Met, it’s also not a complete career retrospective as they sometimes do with lesser-known artists. It’s a highlight of the beginning of his career, before the Madame X scandal and critics chased him out of Paris and he became the London society portrait painter he is known for being.
To make a long story short, Sargent was a phenom even in his student days, and soaked up everything he could in Paris ateliers and in the art scene in the late 1800s. He was friends with many of the Impressionists and Rodin. He was sketching like mad and painting portraits of friends that he would use to establish his career (and finances) as a leading portrait artist. And then he exhibited Madame X at the Paris Salon, and the critics went crazy (in a bad way) for both how she was painted (the sex appeal, the dropped shoulder strap, the reputation of the model). And while history has shown us the Paris Salon hating your work is a very good sign for later superstardom (Manet’s Olympia, anyone?), it was crushing for Sargent at the time. He fled to London, set up his studio, and became very famous and very comfortably paid, painting aristocratic portraits.
Later in his career (as you hear in the video embedded above) he actually came to despise painting those meat and potatoes portraits and would only do charcoal portraits, as he had plenty of money to spend the bulk of his time painting what he wished. He clearly regretted the path he chose, and maybe it made him wish he had stayed to fight the critics in Paris.
This exhibit centered on his early career in Paris, leading up to the Madame X painting, and it’s incredible. There are so many more sketches and related works in the show. To an Art Director, it was clear that this was an artist at the beginning of his career, building a portfolio. Dressing up his friends as stand-ins for the Rich People who could pay for large portraits and establish his career.
He was REALLY in love with that nose.
There’s even this adorable letter and cartoon included:
It’s also very easy with Sargent to know who he did and didn’t like painting — there’s plenty of conjecture over his sexual orientation and not a lot of evidence — but you can sense his fascination with certain people, with their personality and their features.
There’s also a good amount of travel work (Venice & Capri especially) and a book of his collected sketches in a scrapbook — I would have given a few years off my life for a chance to page through it!
This exhibit sadly closed this weekend — from how packed it was I’m sure it could have run a few more months easily — and I’m to sure if it’s going to travel, but if you have a chance to see this exhibit elsewhere – or any of Sargent’s pre-Madame X pieces — they are worth seeing in person and studying.
These are all my photos, of what I was most drawn to, but to see the exhibition pieces in full resolution go to the Met’s Exhibition Page.
God, how this man painted WHITE. So good it makes you hate him! He was just showing off here:
There’s also some very good Sargent documentaries on YouTube, here’s a few:
Looks like a fantastic exhibit! Wish I could see it, but I live too far away.
Also of note- On the third season of the HBO series The Gilded Age, there are a few scenes with an actor portraying Sargent painting a portrait. There was also an unveiling of the portrait, which didn’t quite look like his work, but passable for the general viewing public.