Although his education was far from complete, Sargent grew up to be a highly literate and cosmopolitan young man, accomplished in art, music, and literature. If we could afford to give him really good lessons, he would soon be quite a little artist.' At the age of thirteen, he received some watercolor lessons from Carl Welsch, a German landscape painter. FitzWilliam had hoped that his son's interest in ships and the sea might lead him toward a naval career.Īt thirteen, his mother reported that John 'sketches quite nicely, & has a remarkably quick and correct eye. Sargent worked on his drawings, and he enthusiastically copied images from The Illustrated London News of ships and made detailed sketches of landscapes. Early on, she gave him sketchbooks and encouraged drawing excursions. His mother was a capable amateur artist and his father was a skilled medical illustrator. Several attempts to have him formally schooled failed, owing mostly to their itinerant life. As his father wrote home, 'He is quite a close observer of animated nature.' His mother was convinced that traveling around Europe, and visiting museums and churches, would give young Sargent a satisfactory education. Īlthough his father was a patient teacher of basic subjects, young Sargent was a rambunctious child, more interested in outdoor activities than his studies. Four more children were born abroad, of whom only two lived past childhood. They generally avoided society and other Americans except for friends in the art world. They lived modestly on a small inheritance and savings, leading a quiet life with their children. After her birth, FitzWilliam reluctantly resigned his post in Philadelphia and accepted his wife's request to remain abroad. While Mary was pregnant, they stopped in Florence, Tuscany, because of a cholera epidemic. Although based in Paris, Sargent's parents moved regularly with the seasons to the sea and the mountain resorts in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. They remained nomadic expatriates for the rest of their lives. After John's older sister died at the age of two, his mother, Mary Newbold Singer (née Singer, 1826–1906), suffered a breakdown, and the couple decided to go abroad to recover. 1820 Gloucester, Massachusetts), was an eye surgeon at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia 1844–1854. Before John Singer Sargent's birth, his father, FitzWilliam (b. Sargent is a descendant of Epes Sargent, a colonial military leader and jurist. Art historians generally ignored society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century. 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.

His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. During the next year following the scandal, Sargent departed for England where he continued a successful career as a portrait artist.įrom the beginning, Sargent's work is 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. An early submission to the Paris Salon in the 1880s, his Portrait of Madame X, was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter in Paris, but instead resulted in scandal. He enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter.

His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.īorn in Florence to American parents, he was trained in Paris before moving to London, living most of his life in Europe. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings.

John Singer Sargent ( / ˈ s ɑːr dʒ ən t/ Janu– April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the 'leading portrait painter of his generation' for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury.

Singer impression