John Singer Sargent

Painter of languid, elegant, Edwardian beauties and sharply dressed gentlemen, John Singer Sargent was the ultimate society painter. He knew everyone who was anyone and was on personal terms with many of them, including Edward VII and the U.S. presidents Roosevelt and Wilson. This social standing was justified. Sargent was one of the greatest portrait painters ever, able to convey the personality and style of his sitters—comparable to the great Velázquez himself, of whom he was a great admirer. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, in early January 1856 while his American parents were on an extended European tour that turned into a lifetime of travel. Sargent would continue the traveling tradition that he was born into for the whole of his life. Sargent never married and never had children, but his much younger sister, Violet, was a frequent subject of his paintings, watercolors, and sketches. From 1897 to 1907, Sargent was in great demand as a portraitist, on both sides of the Atlantic. By 1907, however, he had wearied of the portrait and turned his attention to landscapes, primarily done as watercolors. In 1918, during WWI, Sargent traveled to the Western Front in France. What he witnessed there would inspire his next major work, Gassed, which currently hangs in the Imperial War Museums in London. Sargent had a rare wide-ranging talent and pursued it agressively.